An Old Timey Podcast - 74: Family Feud: Dear Abby vs. Ann Landers (Part 1)

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

For decades, Dear Abby and Ann Landers were the undisputed queens of advice columns. They had millions of loyal readers. They were celebrated public figures. Their columns stood out for being sassy, sharp, and at times, shockingly progressive. But, behind the scenes, the twin sisters had a contentious, competitive relationship. In this episode, we set the scene for the women they would one day become.Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Kristin pulled from: The book “Dear Ann, Deary Abby: The Unauthorized Biography of Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren” by Jan Pottker and Bob Speziale“Twin lovelorn advisers torn asunder by success,” by Paul O’Neil for Life MagazineThe book, “The Best of Ann Landers: Her Favorite Letters of All Time,” by Ann LandersThe book, “The Best of Dear Abby,” by Abigail Van Buren“Pauline Phillips, better known as ‘Dear Abby,’ dies at 94,” Washington Post“Ann Landers, advice giver to the millions, is dead at 83,” by Margalit Fox for the New York Times“The rivalry of Dear Abby and Ann Landers,” by Melissa Baron for BookRiot.com“Landers’ death renews family feud,” South Florida Sun Sentinel“Pauline Phillips, longtime Dear Abby advice dies at 94,” by Michael Martinez for CNN“Columnists/ daughters carry on the feud,” by Beverly Beyette for the Los Angeles Times“Competition between Iowa sisters who penned Dear Abby, Ann Landers fueled advice columns,” Des Moines RegisterAre you enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Then please leave us a 5-star rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts!Are you *really* enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Well, calm down, history ho! You can get more of us on Patreon at patreon.com/oldtimeypodcast. At the $5 level, you’ll get a monthly bonus episode (with video!), access to our 90’s style chat room, plus the entire back catalog of bonus episodes from Kristin’s previous podcast, Let’s Go To Court.

Here ye, hear ye. You are listening to an old timey podcast. I'm Kristen Caruso. And I'm Norman Caruso. And on this episode, I'll be talking about Anne Landers and Dear Abby. A lighthearted topic, Kristen? Yes, but it's hardcore drama and you're not prepared for it. I guarantee it. You think, oh, these are old fuddy-duddy women, you know, blah, blah, blah. No. This is wild. First of all, Ann Landers and Dear Abbey rock. They are very cool. I won't have any slander against them, but also these ladies knew how to do drama, okay?

And they did it with each other. Well, I only just learned that they were sisters. Twin sisters. Twin sisters. Yeah. You learned because I'm obsessed with them. And now this is a whole series, folks. Buckle up.

Oh, God. I hope other people are as enthused about this as I am. When you mention it in an earlier episode, people were very fired up about it. They're like, we would listen to that in a heartbeat. Which makes me wonder, were we all weird little nerds growing up? Just flipping straight to Dear Abby or Ann Landers. I'm not choosing sides. Did you read it?

It's like you don't even know your audience. Listen, Norm, sometimes it's hard to know. Is this something that I am just uniquely obsessed with and it's kind of dumb? or is it an international phenomenon? I'm going to go with international phenomenon. Okay. Folks, I have some sad news. Oh.

I'm trying to do a light episode here. Well, let's get the sad news out of the way first. Kristen still does not have jeans in Michigan. She tried to find some the other day. But Norm wouldn't let me. And I said, what are you doing? I slapped him out of my hands. I said, you're going to wear these.

and I gave her some, you know, booty shorts. Wow. No, just kidding. Kristen is allowed to buy jeans. She just hasn't found a pair yet, okay? But she's going to need your help, so please head on over to patreon.com slash old-timey podcast.

Consider becoming a non-threatening fan for just $5 a month. You'll get access to our monthly bonus episodes with full video. And you get to chitty chat in the Discord. Five bucks for full video episodes. Kristen? I don't think any of it.

other podcast has ever done this. I think a lot of podcasts do, Norm, I'm sorry to say. But still, still, we are great. But if you're ready to commit to us full time, baby, get in on that $10 pig butter investor tier because you get bonus episodes, sign card and stickers, early ad-free video episodes, monthly trivia parties. We did candy trivia recently. Kristen? We did. Folks, did you know that cotton candy was invented by a dentist? I did because I helped write the questions. I didn't know that M&Ms were invented during World War II. Future topic? Yes. Absolutely. So you get all that, 10% off all merch, and add free episodes of Kristen's old, decrepit, rotting podcast that we call Let's Go to Court. So head on over to patreon.com slash old-timey

podcast to sign up. Thank you. And Kristen, let's dive into this lighthearted fun episode. All right. That has a lot of drama. Yeah, a lot of drama. By the way, everyone, we just released a new bonus episode. It was all about Lanceford Hastings, the douche canoe from the Donner Party series. It was terrible. I hated researching it, but it was a fun episode, so go check it out. It was. That guy was a grifter, and he sucked at everything. And as a result, multiple people died. That's all. That's it. That's it. A small price to pay for averageness. Okay. Are we ready? Let's do it.

advice! We all need it, but where do we get it? These days we turn to the sage wisdom of Redditors and modern-day philosophers like Dr. Phil, Dr. Laura, Dr. Oz, and when we've got just the right amount of pocket change, Lucy from Charlie Brown. But Norm, those nosy Nellies pale in comparison to the identical twin sisters who, in the 1950s, took the boring, stuffy advice columns that were so common in newspapers of their day and turned them on their heads. Their advice was refreshingly sassy, witty, and at times shockingly progressive. I'm talking, of course, about the queens of advice columns, Anne Landers and Dear Abby. The sisters brought new Life to the world of advice columns. They had millions of readers all over the world. But I think I speak for the people when I ask the most important question of all. Were they friends?

The answer in a word is no. The answer in two words is hell no. And the answer in a song is No, no. Hell to the know. So they were twin sisters and they were not friends? That's right, Norm. Over the years, the fiercely competitive sisters came to really hate each other. Their feud went public. It got an in-depth, multi-page article in-life magazine and two nasty profiles in ladies' home journal.

There was even a gotcha moment with Charlie freaking Rose. Dear Abby, or as we call her in this, house, the mean one, badmouthed her identical sisters' looks. She badmouthed her marriage. She called her jealous. And as for Anne Landers, well, she wasn't perfect either. For an entire decade, the twins didn't speak to each other. Their feud was truly epic. In fact, it was so contentious that it got passed down to their daughters. Their daughters who both became, you guessed it, advice columnists. Oh my God, generational feuds.

But before we get into all those juicy details, let's start this series at the very beginning. A very good place to start. Picture it! Are you ready for this norm? I feel like you are just hanging on there. Ooh, man, I mean, right now I'm just kind of sad. I mean, it's a bummer, and it's weird.

But, you know, nobody dies. It's fine. Yeah, I'm just thinking about, like, if I hadn't talked to my, I don't even have a twin, but if I hadn't talked to my brother or sister for 10 years, man, that's just sad. So I got to know more. Why were they feuding? Let's start. Slow down, Norm. Picture it!

It was the early 1900s in Sioux City, Iowa. Russian Jewish immigrants, Abraham and Rebecca Friedman, were working like hell to create a better life for themselves. They'd come to the United States because Abraham didn't want to serve in the Russo-Japanese War, which is a war that I've known about for just weeks. Yes, everything's connected, Kristen. Norm, you're not supposed to get so excited about war. That's very white. No, the last topic was Hiro Onoda, the Japanese soldier. and in the beginning, I talked about the Russo-Japanese War. Yeah, that's why I said I've known about it for weeks.

I've been very knowledgeable this whole time. Listen, just the context, it really excites me. Continue. I'm rock hard over here. Oh, my God. Abraham was a super hard worker. But as a Jewish person, he faced a lot of discrimination in the job market. So he made his own way, baby.

He sold chickens from a push cart. Some sources mistake that for he sold chicken from a push cart. which sounds more normal, but no, these were just straight up live chickens from a push cart. Yeah, if it said he sold chicken, I would assume the chicken was dead. Yes. But chickens. Slathered in barbecue sauce. Yeah, there's something about the extra S. I know they're alive.

He worked and worked and worked and worked and saved and saved and saved. And after a few years, he and Rebecca had enough money to become part owners in a grocery store. And wow, they prospered. Wait a minute. What? They were grocery store owners? They were. Can you say it, Kristen?

I think I just did. No, you said they became owners in a grocery store. Norm, I worded it that way so that I'd be able to say it on the podcast. Let's hear it. Folks, if you've been around for a while, you know that there are certain words that when put together just cannot be said aloud by me. They were grocery store owners. Boy, did you? You almost.

Anyone on the video version, you're going to watch my mouth go. Yeah. Grocery store owners. Her mouth was breakdancing as she said that. They had two daughters, Helen and Dorothy. Soon they became part owners of a movie theater and a vaudeville theater. Eventually, they'd invest in other businesses, including an even classier vaudeville theater,

which sounds hot and an ice factory, which sounds cold. I'm going to have the Rimscian hand. for this one. I feel like you've got a lot of jokes. I actually don't, but I did enjoy that one. Very good. To top off what can only be described as a cartoonishly perfect depiction of the American dream. Rebecca Friedman gave birth to a set of twins, twins who would one day become internationally celebrated public figures on July 4, 1918. That is patriotic right there.

Yeah. Also the year War War I ended. Oh, that's fun. You know, I thought there'd be very few mentions of war in this episode. We got two mentions already. Let's see what else we can get here. And these twins were just born. They're going to live through a few wars, actually.

Norm knows how wars work. When it came time to name their twin daughters, Rebecca and Abraham gave the girls mirror images of each other's names. That's right. They named their twins Pauline Esther Friedman and Esther Pauline Friedman. Oh, that is cutesy. You ready for it to get even cuter?

Sure. Esther went by Epi. Aw. And Pauline, tragically, went by Popo. Popo. I think that's terrible. That's like the character on Dragon Ball Z, Mr. Popo. Norm, please.

We're trying to keep this kind of cool. All right, I'm already talking about Dear Abby and Ann Landers. Now you've got to talk about Dragon Ball Z. Dragon Ball Z is very cool. Okay. Watched it every afternoon after school. I hope there's some other history hos out there that agree with me. Anyway, Kristen, do you even know what Dragon Ball Z is?

Yeah, it's an anime thing. Anyhow, there's balls and dragons just flying out your face. I mean, that's accurate too. Yeah. Yes. I do want to pause and talk about the nicknames because I was like, they called him Popo. I mean, Epi is cute, but Popo, I don't know. The oldest daughter, Helen, got the nickname Kenny.

Huh. How do you get from Helen to Kenny? I don't know. I don't know either. But apparently people are getting from Margaret to Peg, so who am I to step in here? Also, second oldest daughter, Dorothy, got nicknamed Debbie. You know, my grandma was named Margaret, and her nickname was Babs. The world is such a strange place.

We'll never understand it. Epi and Popo would one day become the number one and, ouch, number two, most popular syndicated columnists in the world. But for now they were just babies, beautiful babies. They had bright blue eyes and striking dark hair. As the years went by, Epi and Popo did everything together. They shared a room. They shared a bed. Not so fun fact. They shared a bed from the time they were infants until the day they got married. Oh. Oh, indeed. What age was that? 21. Oh. I mean, that's a twin thing. Right? I mean, not to that extreme level, but like twins usually like share room or like do things

together all the time. Well, I think usually you, you share a room if there's not enough rooms in the house for each kid to have a room. That makes sense to me. I think by law, twins have to be. No. But sharing a bed? Mm-hmm.

No. Yeah, that's a little too far. Get yourself a set of twin beds for your twins. Huh? See, it's cute. It's in the name. I mean, yeah, that makes sense to me. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself and grossing everyone out.

Everyone knew the Friedman twins. They were so charming, so petite, so well-spoken, so social. They sang duets together. Their parents encouraged them to memorize every song by the Andrews sisters so that the girls could sing it together and do the choreography together and play the violin together while wearing the same clothes and the same hairstyle and eating the same foods and thinking the same thoughts and basically having the same name and being the same person.

but just a mirror image. Isn't it fun? Isn't it cute? You hardly ever saw Epi without Popo, which meant you hardly ever saw Popo without Epi. It was totally healthy and definitely not a problem. So don't worry about emmeshment. The term hadn't been invented yet. And they're not codependent. You're a codependent. Ooh. Anyhow. Kristen, you're a little fired up over there. Oh, you know, this is just a totally normal thing and I'm ready to defend it. I mean, at least they were actually twins, unlike the Sutherland sisters, right? Wait, what's your beef?

What? Unlike those fucking Sutherland sisters. Norm, there are so many problems going on in this story, and you're like, you know what? Like a hundred years ago, some lady with really long hair pretended to be part of the Sutherland sisters, and that's a problem. They're living in the same time. Weren't the Sutherland sisters, late 1800s? They were a little past their prime by then, Norm, but, you know, not the point. Okay.

Okay. I'm just saying they're actual twins. Yes. Yes. It's true. It's at this point that I think we need to pause and say that these days parents seem to understand that twins need to be treated as individuals. Yes, it's cool that they're twins, but they are also two different people who may need support fostering their own separate identities. Except Norm doesn't know that because he thinks that by law all twins should be in a snuggy together. I'm going to have to say, I don't agree with that stance.

I think twins should always be together. But yeah, Norm, you're kind of an old-timey guy. That's kind of how they thought back then. And it's certainly the way that Abraham and Rebecca Friedman thought. This extreme closeness was what they wanted. They encouraged the twins to have the same friends, to join the same clubs, attend the same classes. And that was great for a while.

It was undoubtedly cute as hell. but Epi, who would one day become known as Anne Landers, began to feel a little stifled. When she was just 11 years old, she became racked with guilt because she realized that, unlike Popo, who would later become known as Dear Abby,

Anne preferred shredded wheat over puffed rice. And although that seems like not a big deal at all... No, both terrible. cereals, I mean, that's the scandal here, is that they're both bad. I mean, I got to say, we were spoiled as kids with all the cereal options. You know, back then, they're fighting over shredded wheat and puffed rice. Yeah. So rice Krispies, basically. Yes. Yeah. But think of all the cereals we had, Kristen. I'm thinking about them right now. Yeah. The cereal aisle is still, to this day, a glorious place. Okay. On the count of three, say your favorite cereal. Oh, God, I've got to think.

Think about it. Well, I don't eat a lot of cereal. Okay. One, two, three. Crackling oat bran. Yeah, you're way more excited. I like it all. Okay.

Okay. Anne remembered that moment when she admitted she preferred the shredded wheat because it felt controversial and wrong and maybe a little disappointing to other people to admit that she had an opinion that wasn't the exact same opinion as Abbeys. Ooh, that's, uh, yeah, that's really low-stakes stuff here. But I think it speaks volumes.

Well, yeah, absolutely. If you're scared to admit you like a different serial than your twin, ooh. You're scared to be an individual. Right, yeah. Which means that's kind of been enforced. Mm-hmm. It's funny, even by old-timey standards, the Friedman twins seemed a little too close. When the girls got to middle school, some of the girls,

their teachers became concerned. Anne and Abby were so dependent on one another. And so those nosy teachers suggested that, you know, it might be beneficial to just put the girls in separate classes. You know, maybe they could branch out a little. Maybe they could focus on themselves as individuals. Mm-hmm. But I don't think I need to tell anyone that it was the worst idea that anyone had ever

come up with since the beginning of time. Did mom and dad intervene? Uh, no. Nor, just to give you a small sampling of the drama that we will experience in this series, you should know that in response to being told that maybe they should attend separate classes. Anne and Abby marched straight to the principal's office and told him that they would rather die than be separated. Oh, my God. And then they spent the rest of the day crying.

Oh, boy. I mean, it's funny, but it's not funny. I'd rather die? Yes. Yes, rather die. Thank you. Ultimately, those horrible public school teachers put Anne and Abbey in separate home rooms but allowed them to attend the rest of their classes together, thank God. But don't worry, when they got to high school, they didn't have any separate classes. The Friedman twins were together again, all the time, every second, night and day, even when they went out on dates. Oh. They made them double dates because there's nothing hotter than going on a date with your sister. Mm. Kristen, you know anything about that?

No, that's weird. Gross, stop. You and Kyle didn't double date? No, no. What's wrong with that? I, you know, I guess there's nothing wrong with going on a double date with your sister, but there's too much going on here. They can't go on dates separately. Yeah, I know.

They can't have their own twin beds. Nope. Were they allowed to have their own toothbrushes? God, I hope so. It would always be a little hard to distinguish. between Anne and Abby, but people said that when they were in high school, Abby proved to be the slightly more outgoing one, the slightly braver one. And maybe Anne wanted to do things her own way, but at that time she didn't quite have the courage. Having Abby by her side made her comfortable.

But, God, let's stop talking about emotions and feelings and focus on what matters. Looks! Anne and Abby looked great. They took great. They took great. care with their looks. They were stared at a lot, not just because they were twins, but because they were beautiful twins, beautiful twins with incredible taste in clothing. They played into it, but eventually, you know, it was time to separate the vaudeville act, Norm. What does that mean? It meant that when they graduated high school, they went to separate colleges. Oh. I'm just kidding. They attended Morningside College, a local college that allowed the twins to keep living at home, keep sharing a bedroom, and yes, keep sharing a bed. That's good. That's good. No, it's not. No, stop Norm. This is what we want at the society. Norm's got a lot of weird laws he wants to enforce for twins.

At college, the twins once again proved inseparable. They showed up for their first day of classes wearing matching skunk coats. Ooh, like skunk fur? Well, yeah, what are you, what else were you imagining? I don't know if it was just like a graphic tea with a skunk on it. No, these ladies, how dare you? They, I bet you, they didn't even own t-shirts, maybe to sneeze into. They were always dressed way more formally than the occasion called for. Skunk.

You're like skunks, there's a big risk of the smell, though, right? Well, I would assume that they were heavily laundered. Oh, I got this one half off because it smells so bad. You released his juices and this one smells bad. Yeah, I wasn't sure if it was just like a cute little graphic tea with a skunk on it. No, you are... Pepe Lepeot or something. So wrong.

So wrong. Keep that rapy skunk out of this story. Hey, woke destroyed Pepe Lepe. Good. I'm glad we got something. Then wokeness came and took that great cartoon away from it. which we all loved, right? No, no, it's terrible.

They worked on their college newspaper together where they co-wrote a gossip column called the campus rat. Ooh, now that is a, that's a literal name for a gossip column. Yeah. The campus rat. That's great, right?

Are you ready for something also great? Okay. They went by the byline, peep. Oh. Which was very cute and very clever because it was their first and middle initials. both of them together. And like they're peeping on you

because, you know, they're getting all the gossip. Esther. Esther, Pauline and Pauline Esther. Esther, Pauline, Pauline, Esther. Okay. And remind me again, because I'm getting confused of the twins. Esther is Abby? Esther is Anne.

Esther is Anne. Popo is Abby. But I am now referring to them as Anne and Abby because it's just nuts. We can't keep track. Yep. And which is why you have to keep twins together at all times.

That's right. Because you can't lose track of them. And you know what? Just keep them in the same bed. Don't let them leave the bed, right? This is all normal stuff. No, I didn't say that. You're not a serial killer, Norm.

You don't need to be on a list. We don't need to be concerned at all. Is that what you're saying? Not yet, no. I feel like we're in a police interrogation video, and I'm the cop who's acting like, oh yeah, so it's totally normal you do this. I'm not judging it all.

Why don't you just tell me all about it and tell me where the bodies are buried? I'm sure she deserved it. Well, we all make mistakes, you know. We all collect sets of twins and do weird stuff. Don't worry about it. Around this time, the twins met the men they would drop out of college to marry. Oh.

These must have been some serious hunks. Well, that was pretty common back in the day. Oh. They called it the MRS degree. You know, you just go to meet the man you're going to marry because, you know. The Mrs. degree. Yeah. Oh, that's cute.

Mm-hmm. Also sad. Yes. you know. That's true. How about a mister degree? Yeah, weirdly, they don't really call it that. Yeah, how about a guy goes off to college to find a lady and drops out to marry her? Now, I must warn you, both Anne and Abby, but especially Abby, had a tendency to play around with the truth a bit. So, I'm going to tell a couple stories here. We're going to start with the real story of how Abby met her future husband. Now, before you start, are they twins? Oh, my God. That would be so cute, wouldn't it? Unfortunately, no.

Okay. These are just regular dudes. Boring as hell. We call them singles. Yeah. We in the community. Yeah, we're known as singles. Norm, I didn't know you were so weird. So here it is. The real story of how Abby met her husband. Anne was going to a dance at the University of Minnesota.

Okay, she had a date, Abby didn't. Don't you know. So, so Anne asked her date. They've got the sexiest accents up there. We all know it. But I gosh, they do. So Anne asked her date to find a guy who would take Abby to the dance. And the guy asked a dude named Mort Phillips.

And Mort Phillips was like, no. I'm not going on a blind date. I want to see the girl first. Well, you're in luck. What do you mean? Well, they're twins, so when his buddy shows up, he's like, this is what your date will look like. You think Abby and Anne would be separated ever so he could just look at Anne? No, that's not the way this story works, Norm.

They're always together. Okay. You know, I took out the part about how in their high school yearbook, you know, they had the little thing underneath the pictures and it said, always with Epi and then always with Popo, you know, anyhow, you get the idea. So you're not meeting one without the other is what I'm trying to do it. Okay. Package deal. Got it. Yeah. So the guy had to ask some other dude to take Abby to the dance. And when they all got to the dance, Mort saw Abby. And he was like, hop in a humma, humna, humma.

He was like, I'm about to bust. That's right. He was like, may I cut in and bing, bang, boom, the two hit it off. Okay. Nothing wrong with that story, right? No, I guess not. Well, no. I mean, what? You know, kind of a cute story. I guess he's a little shallow. Sure. And then he realized, oh, she's hot, and then, oh, now I want to be with her.

Right. This was the story that everyone knew. Family, friends, everybody. What's the real story, Kristen? That is the real story. I just told you the real story. And I'm just telling you, like, it was not a secret. Everybody knew this story.

What's the made up story, Kristen? Okay, there we go. Much later in life, Abby told the following story about how she met her husband. Are you ready? Yep. She and Anne were in a beauty parlor, getting their hair done together. When they saw a handsome man go into the barbershop next door, it was Mort Phillips. And Anne said, oh, that's for me.

But Abby said, uh-uh, that's for me. And Abby won. So there you go. How did Abby win? She got Mort Phillips. Oh, that's the end of the story? That's her story of how she met her husband. It's totally made up.

All right. And see, Norm, you're not weirded out enough by this. Okay, I got to say, I am telling you, it's deeply weird that Abby changed the perfectly fine true story of how she met her husband. And it's even weirder that she invented a version where her twin sister wanted the guy who became her husband but didn't get him.

No, it's because she wanted to seem superior to her twin. Yes. Yeah, so she changed the story. Yes. Yeah. I get it. I get it. I do it all the time.

No, a Kristen, I don't have a twin. So much as I wanted a little brother growing up. Oh, did you really? I did. Oh. I remember asking my mom. Uh-huh. What'd she tell you?

No. Actually, it was more like... Hello. Three was more than enough. Yeah, after me. It was it. By the way, I was an accident. Norm.

I should not exist right now. It's a miracle I'm here. I don't know that it's a miracle. Recording a podcast. A lot of people are surprises, Norm. Pleasant surprises. But look at you now. Uh-huh.

Her pride and joy. That's right. A podcast. Oh, what every child wants to be now. So I think that we, Weird lie speaks volumes about Abby. She was always very proud of landing Mort Phillips. And to be honest, he was quite a catch.

Hot? You know, not a bad looking guy, but the real... Big biceps? I don't know about that. And honestly, academically, academically, he wasn't blown anything out of the water. Really, what I'm talking about is his money. He had a great ass. Dude was loaded.

Oh, he was... Okay, well, okay. You're like, oh, I'm not worried about his ass anymore. He was the heir to his family's liquor business. Ooh. Chiching, lug, lug, lug. That might be a problem in the coming years. Why?

Prohibition. Well, Norm, they were born in 1918. Oh, shit, prohibition's over. Yeah. Yeah. Well, how'd they keep the family business going, Kristen? They got, so they started a liquor business after Prohibition was repealed. Ah.

Mm-hmm. Mm. Hmm, smart. That's a genius right there. Abraham and Rebecca were thrilled. Their daughter Abby had found a nice Jewish boy. And wow, she likely would never have to worry about money. That is pretty great.

Or liquor. Okay, Abby and Ann always wanted everyone to know that, you know, growing up, they didn't have sex, they didn't smoke, and they didn't drink. I'm kind of like, okay, gals. Anyhow, Abby and Mort dated for about three years before he proposed. And it's funny. Although Anne had shown signs of kind of wanting independence, maybe this was too much. Maybe it was scary to see her twin sister taking this next very celebrated step in life without her.

Especially at a time when, for women, getting married was the thing to do. it was crucial to marry well and marry young. And maybe that pressure was especially intense for twins. Because when you're constantly being compared, not just by other people, but likely by yourselves too, it'd be pretty tough to see your sister marry a millionaire while you stay single. Okay, true story. Back in the day, when my sister got engaged, you know, very happy for her,

wonderful stuff. My grandmother called me up. And, okay, I was dating a guy who, you know, not, not Norm. And it was not a marriage material type of relationship, okay? Purely carnal. Ew, stop. Anyway, it was not a marriage type relationship. My grandmother called me after Kyla got engaged, and she said to me, you can beat her.

What? Like, physically attack Kyla. Well, obviously. I'm buff and jacked, and I could just smash her. You can beat her up. No, my grandma, I didn't understand it at first either. My grandma was worried about me losing face by being the older sister who was not married before the younger sister got married. So what did you do, Kristen?

Well, that's the story of my first marriage. And I'm sorry that you found out this way on the podcast, but that's just how it goes, I couldn't have Kyla besting me in front of everyone. I get it. I get it. Is that not weird? It's super weird. So what did you do when she said that?

Did you just like laugh it off as a joke? Well, I mean, she wasn't joking, but I did laugh. And she didn't take too kindly to that. But, you know, I often did laugh at my grandmother's advice. Like when you got that nose ring. Oh, my God. Yeah, she was very upset that I got my nose pierced folks. She implied that I was perhaps.

a sex worker now. A lady of the night? Is that what she called? No, she said, gosh, what did she say? A woman who walks the streets? She at first said that I looked like, first she said that I had ruined my beautiful looks. And then she said that I looked like a rough woman, I think, which I understood what she was saying, but I evidently, my face didn't fall the way she wanted it to.

And so then she said, who walks the streets looking for men? And I was like, Grandma, I get it loud and clear. She was about to bust out the line. Cuddles for Cash, cutie. She was about to say, you're a whore. Yeah, you're a whir. I said, Grandma, none of these dudes have paid me anything. So, Abby's engaged.

Maybe it brought up some feelings in Anne. And as luck, Would have it? No. Not long after Abby got engaged and met a guy named Lewis Dreyer. He was in law school at UCLA. And no, okay, his dad didn't own a gigantic liquor company, but... His dad invented the electric dryer.

Oh. Lewis Dreyer. No, that would be amazing. Sorry, that's a really stupid joke. But we have to keep it in. Okay, what did his family do? Sorry for interrupting that awful joke. His dad was a VP at RKO Pictures.

RKO? RKO? Yeah. Yes. King Kong. Yeah. If you've listened to our Lucille Ball series, see, context, I knew you'd get excited. Man, when you interrupted for the dumbest joke of all time, and, you know, that's stacked up against my joke about...

Stacked up like a washer and dryer? Yes. And also, compared to my jokes about the vaudeville theater being hot, the ice. Hot like a dryer? Oh, my God. Okay. I surrender. You're amazing.

This is improv, folks. So yeah, she got her guy, UCLA law, RKO pictures, checkmate. Okay, so marry into money too. Now Anne had also found a wealthy, young Jewish guy. And you know, 12 seconds later, Bing, Bang, Boom, they're engaged too. Ha, double checkmate. I've never played chess. And wow.

Anne loved Lewis. So much. So much. The way you're saying this, it makes it seem like she does not love him. No, this was all real love. The kind of love people brag about on Instagram. That's how you know it's real. Oh, yeah.

And so since Anne and Abby were both engaged, Abraham and Rebecca decided to hold a joint wedding for the twins. Oh, boy. How did I not see this coming? I don't know. Of course they're having a joint wedding. I did say they shared a bed from the time they were infants until their wedding night. Oh, God.

Their wedding night. Oh, God. You're right. It would be perfect. On their 21st birthday, the 4th of July, 1939, the gals would marry their grooms wearing identical wedding dresses. Wow. Oh, it would just be perfect and not weird at all. This is exactly how twins should live.

This is perfect. It's really better for like a sitcom than real life, don't you think? You know, it started as an idea for a sitcom, but, you know, the more we saw it, the more like, this should be real life. This is just how it should be. By law. Yeah. So they got it all planned out, ready to go.

But there was just one issue. Oh my God, they didn't have veils yet. So Anne and Abby went off to the T.S. Martin Department store where they went wedding veil shopping. Not to J.C. Penny? No, I'm sorry, Norm. I was really hoping for another connection to a previous episode. There will be some more. Really?

Oh, my goodness. Yes, Norm. I love it. I love it when we can connect the dots. So, while they were there shopping for matching wedding veils for their double wedding, a salesman named Jules Letterer helped them make their selection. Was Jules good at picking out wedding veils? Absolutely not, I say.

I saw a picture of Anne and Abby at their first. their joint wedding. It looks like they're wearing beaded beanies. It looks terrible. Here, I've got a picture in this book. Beated beanies? I'm sorry. They're beautiful women.

Like a toboggan hat? I'm going to show you the picture. Will you scan this in and send it to Joe so we can put it in the episode? I guess. And folks, if you're not on Patreon for the video episodes, don't worry. I've got you covered. If it's just a little too spending for you, just picture a really ugly wedding veil. And that's all you need to know.

Norm, look at that top picture. Oh, yeah. Describe what you are seeing. Well, it's almost like they're wearing like Russian military officer hats. Yes, yes. They are going to get scooped up for that Russo-Japanese war. It's already over, Kristen. Well, time machines, you know, whatever it takes.

You know, World War II's coming, so. Hey, spoilers. Wait, whoa. The people don't know, Norm. So anyway, their wedding veils, in my opinion, were very ugly. But that's not the scandal here. The scandal is that at one point, when Anne was trying on veils, Jules pulled Abby aside and was like, hey, I'm kind of interested in asking your sister out.

But I understand that she's engaged and literally trying on wedding veils right now. I'm sorry, what? Yeah. And Abby, who must not have been too fond of poor Lewis Dreyer, was like, oh, you should go for it. Worse thing she can say is no. What? So sure enough. The salesman with the veils? Yeah. Yeah. Jules went up to Anne and said, you're the first girl I ever met that I wanted to marry. And you're coming in to buy a wedding veil. You just met this man. What? This is made up. Where'd you read this? What do you mean? This is made up. That's crazy. Oh, I agree. I agree. This is nuts.

This is a weird and bad way to meet your future spouse, I think. Bad luck at least. Yeah. So what was Anne's response, Norm? I am engaged to be married. How dare you? Or was she extremely flattered and was like, oh, oh, well, I don't know, maybe. Okay, well, I have an exact transcript of what happened.

Really? And it was she went, oh, my God. And, you know, there. Oh, my God. So stupid. Yeah, so yada, yada, yada. She dumped her fiance, but kept the dress and kept the wedding date. And so by the time...

And married that guy? Yes. The veil salesman? Norman. By the time July 4th, 1939 rolled around. She was marrying Jules Lederer and Abby was still marrying Mort Phillips. Sorry to be boring. She kept the same guy the whole time.

What's the time span of meeting the veil salesman to the, wedding day. Norm, you are asking all the questions that I want to know as well. I don't fully know. I know that she called off the engagement and a couple weeks, weeks later, she was engaged. Anyway, the timeline is nuts. We can agree on that. But we should also agree that the ceremony was beautiful and very theatrical. 750 people attended. Three rabbis officiated the ceremony. And afterward, the couples went on a double honeymoon. Well, kind of. Well, I have a question real quick.

Yeah. Did they just cross off the old guy's name and write in the new guy's name? Okay, here's what I wonder. And I know weddings were a little different back then, yada, yada. But I do wonder, well, I guess it wouldn't be canceled because there would still be someone's wedding. Yeah, I guess there would have to be some kind of correction in the paper and a, oh, gosh, well, you don't call it a correction. I don't know. It sounds like a mess. Sounds like a mess.

Hmm. We should look at some newspaper archives, see if we can find it. Okay. So they kind of went on a double honeymoon. Kind of? Yeah. See, Jules Letterer's bank account looked nothing like Mort Phillips's bank account. Or even the bank account of that other guy. What's his name? We don't even remember him. Dyer, Lewish Drier. Wow. Only Norm remembers him.

I think his name was, was it Lewis Drier? It was, yeah. Well, yeah. In your avail source? salesman, yeah, you're not going to make as much money. Sure. So let's talk about Jules. Jules was from Detroit, Michigan. Oh. He came from a family of seven children. I'm sorry. Norm's like, I'm in Michigan right now. I'm in Michigan. It's all connected, Kristen. And just like Ann's parents, his parents had been

immigrants. They'd worked really hard to create a good life for themselves. But tragically, when Jules was in high school, his dad died. when his car was hit by a train. Oof. That left the letterer family in a really tough financial position. The country was in the middle of the Great Depression. There were no safety nets.

So Jules dropped out of the 10th grade to help support his mom and siblings. He'd done everything he could to keep his family afloat. He delivered newspapers. He worked as a stock boy. He worked as a janitor. Anything to get a little money

to help support the family. And, I mean, hell, that's so admirable, so impressive. No, Jules didn't have millions of dollars like Mort did. And no, he didn't have a college degree like Mort did. Hell, he didn't even have a high school diploma. But Anne saw in him the same thing that her father saw in him. Jules had ambition. He had an incredible work ethic.

He could make things happen. He just needed time. I mean, you are certainly ambitious. when you ask an engaged woman if you can go out with her. Yeah. I mean, knows what he wants. Goes after it. Jules and Mort were both good guys.

But wow, Anne and Abby were entering married life at the exact same moment in the exact same dress. But they knew that the lives they would live as married women would be very different, at least for a while. Abby knew that by marrying Mort, she'd immediately be thrust into the good life. And she was stoked! And Anne knew that by marrying Jules, they'd have some tough years. But, you know, she kind of liked that idea.

She loved Jules. She believed in him. And she knew that he had an incredible mind for sales. He had drive. It had taken her own parents a while to get to where they were. And she was willing to put in that time and effort with Jules. You know, it's kind of like that old saying of like, you'd rather be like happy in the mud than bored in a palace? Yeah.

Yeah. Is that what's going on here, kind of? We'll find out. Okay. But, oh, there was no getting around the financial differences between the two couples. And that became immediately apparent on their joint honeymoon. See, they were supposed to go on a two-week romantic adventure to Chicago and Minnesota and all over Canada. and Abby and Mort did all of it, of course.

But after just a little while in Chicago, Jules and Anne ran out of money. They had to cut their honeymoon short, which is sad because who wants to miss out on a honeymoon with their sister? Hmm. What a shame. For the next several years, Anne and Abby led very different and very separate lives. Abby and Mort lived it up!

They took fabulous vacations to exotic locations. like Palm Springs and Honolulu. They met celebrities, and oh my God, Abby loved celebrities. She even got a little part in a movie. It was called At War with the Army. It starred Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. It was a musical. It's in the public domain now.

Stop asking about it. They had a boy and a girl. They had a staff of people to just help them out. And you know what? Abby thought monkeys were really cool. So they just bought a couple monkeys, but, you know, they peed all over the place. So they had to get rid of the monkey.

and now she just collects the monkey statues. It's fine. Don't worry about it. It's a much safer hobby than collecting the actual monkeys. I have a question. Sure. What was the name of the liquor company? Oh, I don't know.

I think it was Phillips. Can we still purchase this liquor? Look it up. Jeez. This is your job. Oh, my. I guess I'll do it, though. I'm sorry, I can't concentrate because I don't have pants.

Yeah, Phillips Distilling Company. Was that it? Yeah. In St. Paul? You know it. Minnesota, they met at that Minnesota frat party. Or did they meet outside a barber shop when Anne was just coveting thy neighbor's goods? So you can still buy this stuff, huh? Well, yeah.

It wants my birth date to look at the website. Jeez. You can't even look at this sexy bottle of vodka. Make me feel young again. I just want to see what their brands are. Ooh, Phillips peppermint schnapps. We have now slid into the sneakiest ad. of all time. You see folks.

Okay, no joke. Let's reach out to them. Let's say, hey, well, you know, we're the number one history podcast in the world. Uh-huh. We talked about your company. Uh-huh. And so... We said only nice things. And so, how about you...

We definitely didn't call Abby the mean one. Absolutely not. Oh, yeah. Oh, sourpuss. Mm-hmm. What? Excuse me? What'd you call me? Okay. You know, we have a lot of Minnesota history hose. Let us know. about this Phillips Distilling Company. So, life sure was grand for Abby, but it wasn't quite so grand for Anne.

For a while, Anne and Jules lived just above the poverty line. They moved around a lot for Jules' work. Anytime he found a job where he could earn a little more money, they moved. I have a question. Yeah. I know Mort is probably going to be able to skip World War II. What about Jules? Why are you skipping ahead in the story, sir?

You're just so obsessed with wars. Well, hang on. You're like, get to the next war! Hang on, hang on. Hang on. They got married in 1939. Yes. That is the year World War II started, so I don't think I'm skipping over anything, Kristen.

Do you think that if these guys go to war, I'm going to skip that part because I don't like wars? That would be hilarious. And then the guys just disappeared And it was sad, but let's not talk about it. They left home, those bastards. And who knows where they went? They came back with something called PTSD. I don't get it.

World War II is called Battle Fatigue. Oh, yes. Okay, sorry. Am I premature of factulating? Am I getting ahead of myself? Yes. Okay, all right. Anyway, continue.

I'm just saying I feel like Mort is going to be able to skip out on World War II. Because he's the heir to the Phillips distilling company. Sure, sure. But Jules, poor, good-looking guy, he's going off to war. Okay, all right. Were they searching for poor hotties? We only want hot guys in the war, okay? You get your draft number called, and they're like, ew, oh, my God.

We cannot have you representing us. Absolutely not. The enemy won't shoot at hot guys. Too hot. Be too turned on. Too sexy. They had a daughter named Margo. I'm sorry to bring this back to the story, Norm.

They lived in a series of very small apartments, first in Sioux City, later in Milwaukee, then in New Orleans, and most tragically of all, St. Louis, Missouri. Oh, gosh. That was probably the worst place they lived. Well, yeah, because they were there for more than three days. And we all know, you can't be in St. Louis for more than three days. You'll go nuts. Kristen's opinion, not mine. They think they're so smug with that fucking arch.

Arch is cool, but they're not better than Kansas City, I'm just telling you. Hey, you know, they called Arch the Gateway to the West. And remember that plaque we saw in St. Joseph, Missouri that was like, we're the real gateway to the West, unlike that one fucking city. I love a bitchy plaque, because you never expect it. A bitchy plaque in St. Joe, Missouri, by the way. Which, you know, if there was ever a city that needed to just calm down a bit, you know, it's St. Joe.

Yes. So things were tough. Obviously, they were in St. Louis. But from what I could find, Anne never spoke badly about this time in her life. She just spoke about it very matter-of-factly, but never in a self-pitying way. If it bothered her that she had less than her sister, she didn't talk about it publicly. But later in life, Abby sure did. No.

She made sure to paint herself as the one who'd married better, the one who had more, and who was, oh gosh, sometimes sad to see all the great sense. stuff she had compared to all the shitty stuff that Anne had. It just made her sad because she's a good person, Norm. I feel sorry for you. Norm, I feel sorry for you that I dress better than you. I live better than you and I have a better vehicle than you. I just feel bad for you. You know, we're married, right? I feel bad for you because I'm married so much better than you did. It was an odd transition. Anne and Abby after living so much of their lives in tight, arguably oppressive proximity were now adult women with families of their own living in different states. And it might have stayed that way, except for a very strange twist of fate.

Ooh. Norm, in 1944, both Jules and Mort got drafted. Oh, wow. I really thought Mort was going to get away with it. Okay, it's funny. The book I read did go into Mordie. detail on this. I didn't include the detail because I forgot my husband's obsessed with wars. So, 1944, the war was going on a little longer than Marica thought it was going to go. So all of a sudden, it wasn't enough that you were a father. It wasn't enough that you, you know, they had these exemptions in place that had kept Mort and Jewels out of it.

But then that went away. And here they were. Well, I'm shocked the guy with money still had to get drafted. Well. Because if you have money, you can. pay a doctor to be like, oh, yeah, I have, you know, bone spurs. I honestly don't think that would have gone over well with his family. Okay, fair enough. Yeah.

Fair enough. Yeah, and I'm not saying, like, Mort's the kind of guy that's going to dodge her that. I'm just saying, a rich young man during World War II. I do want to say, just because I think in stories like these where it's like, one sister marries the rich man, one marries the poor man, it can be kind of like, and it's good versus evil. Mort seems like a great guy to me. Okay.

Somehow, against all odds, the two brothers-in-law of twin sisters ended up in the same infantry together. It was a wild coincidence, and it got even wilder and more surreal when they got the phone call that their mother-in-law, Rebecca, had suddenly died. Rebecca had been 56 years old.

She died from a cerebral hemorrhage. Both men were granted emergency leave so that they could attend her funeral. They were in the same infantry unit? Yes, okay, you did not react to that the way I thought. Well, I was thinking in my head, well, if they were both from the same place... And they weren't. But they weren't at that time. No.

Yeah, that's wild. Do you know the name of the unit? Army, Marines? Oh, they were in the Army. Okay. In the Army now? And I can't tell you any more details. Well, because they were doing secret spy stuff, I bet.

Okay, well, actually, not really. They didn't even see the front lines. I mean, I don't say, I shouldn't say, didn't even see the front lines. What have I done for any war effort? Jack shit. But, you know. Hey, we're podcasting. Oh, we're, entertaining the troops, baby.

We're like, we're like, I'm like Bob Hope and you're like, uh. Who? What you got for me? Marilyn Monroe. Oh, wow. She entertained the troops, right? Probably. Yeah, I'm guessing, sure.

So that put everyone in the same place together again. And of course it was horrible. It was Rebecca's funeral. But it was kind of nice for everyone to get together. It was kind of familiar. It wasn't the same as it had been when Anne and Abby were children or even young adults. They were young mothers now. And they had very different lifestyles.

They even looked a little different now. Despite the fact that she and Jules didn't have a ton of extra money, Anne had scrimped and saved for a nose job. Oh. A nose job in the 40s? Mm-hmm. Wow. What are your thoughts?

Or do you want to hang on to them? Do you think it was a thing of like, I want to differentiate myself from my sister, so I'm going to get a nose job? Oh, hang on. Let's get into it. Okay. You're going where I wanted you to go.

So maybe Abby didn't say anything about it then, but I think it's safe to say that it really bothered her. It pissed her off on a fundamental level. We're going to talk more about that in a future episode because boy, did she go off to that Life magazine reporter. But for now, I think it's safe to say that Abby took Anne's nose job personally. Well, when you're twins, I guess. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. What's wrong with your nose? Because it's my nose. So I want to just do a quick aside because I do think it's worth noting that at that point in time, a lot of Jewish Americans got nose jobs as a way to avoid discrimination. Right.

And obviously, there's a lot to be said there. But personally, I don't think that Abby resented Anne's nose job because she saw it as an attempt to appear less Jewish. I personally think that Abby saw it as a separation and maybe a rejection and maybe a signal that they weren't running the same race anymore. Yeah. So I'm going to go a little deeper, a little darker here. Uh-oh. I think that Abby really enjoyed being a twin, and she specifically really enjoyed being the twin who

had won. The successful twin. The more successful twin. And all of a sudden, Anne shows up with this nose job. And Abby wasn't surprised. She knew that Anne had gotten this nose job. But by getting that nose job, Anne did change her looks. They were no longer completely identical.

And to me, it was almost like Anne was removing herself from the competition a little bit. Like, no, we're not the same. Yeah. We're not competing with each other. I am different. I look different. I'm doing this other thing here. Ending the competition.

Hmm. Maybe. Yeah. But nose jobs aside, in that moment in the wake of their mother's unexpected death, all the sisters felt was closeness. They were drawn together again. And Mort Phillips saw that, and he was really touched by it. He saw how much his wife loved being around her twin. Before long, Morton Jules had to go back to war, back to that same infantry.

And a funny thing happened while they were in the service. They became friends. Well, that's sweet. Yeah. In fact, they became such good friends that when the war ended, Mort offered Jules a job. By that point, Abby and Mort were living in O'Clair, Wisconsin, where Mort had a very cushy gig as executive vice president for National Presto Industries, proud manufacturer of pressure cookers. How did young Mort get that job? His dad owned the company. Oh, so he owns a distilling company and this pressure cooker.

Yeah, did you think they were just in the liquor business, Norm? Come on. I was shocked. I was like, I can't believe he's not working for the distilling company. But, okay, dad owned multiple businesses. And grandpa, you know, it's a big thing. So, Morton and Abbey settled into O'Clair, where the Phillips family was basically freaking royalty. They'd one day have a local library named after him, the local park, the local senior center, the works.

They were a major employer in the area and very well known. and Mort used his position to offer Jules a job as a pressure cooker salesman. The pressure was on. Wow. Well done. It was not a glamorous job because of all the pressure, as you mentioned, Norm. I stole your joke. Did I steal your joke?

No, you're fine. Jules spent most of his days doing cooking demonstrations in L.A. Oh. And often helped him out washing dishes in the background. Cool. Like Emeril? Emerald Legassi? Exactly.

Didn't he say that? Boom. Yeah. Or was it Bam? Or Bam? Yeah, it was Bam. Sorry. Boom is John Madden for tough acting to acton.

Bam is Emerald. Sorry. Please. We can't have another mistakes of shame on this podcast. It's too shameful. Oh. In time, Jules became the number one salesman in the entire national presto appliance company. Wow.

Yeah. You know, let's, um. Hear it for the boys? I'll give him a little fanfare for that. Good job. He was incredible. Pretty soon he got a big promotion. He became the vice president in charge of sales. And that meant that he and Anne and their daughter would need to relocate to O'Clair, Wisconsin. That was a big deal, both professionally and personally. Just like that, both couples were officially living in the same city. And that's when things got a little weird.

between Anne and Abby. Uh-oh. Little sibling rivalry. Twin rivalry. Abby and Mort lived in a really nice big house. They had a governess to watch the kids. They had a lady who cooked and cleaned for them. They had a dude who was their permanent handyman.

What's a governess? It's like a nanny, but I think they also do education. They're also in politics. It might be, no, it might be more of an old-timey term for a nanny, actually. Yeah, I've never heard that before. Meanwhile, Anne and Jules lived 15 minutes away in a house that Anne sometimes referred to as the peanut place. There was nothing wrong with it. It was a cute middle-class home located at 1617 Valmont Street, O'Clair, Wisconsin.

Is it this little, cute little two-bed one bath? Yeah, it's the peanut place. That is a tiny little house. It's a tiny little house. Man. And okay, I don't have the exact address for Mort and Abby's place, but I do have a picture of it. And we can put that in the video version.

And again, if you don't have the video version, I'm going to help you out. You just go look at Abby and Jules's place and just picture a house that basically swallows that one. And you've got theirs. Oh, yeah. Much bigger house. I'm looking at the listing for the peanut house.

They don't even mention that that was Ann Landers' house. People do not appreciate history. Okay, the house they grew up in, which I don't know why I didn't mention that. Hang on, let me mention that was 1722 Jackson Street in Sioux City, Iowa. That place has been abandoned. At least that's what I saw. 1722 Jackson Street. Oh, that's a cute house.

There's a car in the driveway. Oh, maybe it hasn't been abandoned. That hasn't been abandoned. I don't know what I was looking. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to whoever owns this house now. Four bed, one bath. Built in 1910.

Yeah. So that was kind of a newish house when they went there. Okay. Yeah, it's crazy. Sometimes we'll look up properties from our episodes. And yeah, there's just like no mention of the history of that house. I think that is wild. I know.

They need to be listening to this podcast and update their Zillow listings. Can you imagine you're just listening to a podcast and all of a sudden you hear your address? Right. Oh my gosh. Crazy. So you and I both agree. Anne's house was very cute, but it was very dinky compared to her twin sister's home. So Anne and Abby were in close proximity again.

And in some ways it was good. They went shopping together. They threw dinner parties. They volunteered. Later in life, Abby would position herself as the more prominent one in Eau Claire. Really? She said that when they both lived in O'Clair, everyone just knew Anne as Popo's sister.

Mm, yes. But actual interviews with people who knew them back then showed that people didn't really think of Anne as being less than Abby or being attached to her. They just saw them as the twins. They saw them as local women who both had husbands working high up for the major local employer. So despite the good times.

And I mean, of course, there were good times. That old weird competitive edge resurfaced between the two sisters. Uh-oh. Neither one of them wanted to be the fat twin, so they both dieted to keep their weight down. Oh. I think that sounds awful. Do you know what their diet was? No, but I just, I know that, like, we're all so hard on ourselves about our bodies,

and I think that would be one of the aspects about being a twin that would be really tough. is knowing that everyone's kind of comparing you to. And, you know, we try to set aside the toxic diet stuff, but it would be really hard. It would be way worse with a twin. Yeah. And you're both dieting? So it's like another competition?

Yes. Yeah. The competition to be perfect. Mm-hmm. They also became competitive about getting public recognition. One time Anne gave a speech to the local American Red Cross. and it went over really well. She did a great job.

And once word got out about how well Anne had done, Abby called up another charity and was like, hello, I'd like to be the speaker at your annual meeting, please. What? And she was. She got it done. Oh, my God. Checkmate.

This is petty stuff, huh? Oh, it's ridiculous. That's the thing about Anne and Abby, though. They both loved attention. They particularly loved attention from the local newspaper. they wanted to be mentioned. They wanted to see their photos in print. The local newspaper.

Yeah, that was the thing. I mean, back then, yes. It was another time. I know. Back in the day, newspapers used to matter. That's right. I don't want to offend you as a former journalist, newspaper reporter. You know, my life offends me.

Oh. That's dark. No, it's just sad what has happened to newspapers. Yeah, of course. It got to the point that the, editor of the local paper got irritated with them. And he told them, look, I'm only going to put your picture in the paper once every six months. You're on a ration.

Unless they got a column. Then their picture being the paper every week. Norm, much like the World War II stuff, you are jumping too far ahead. Oh, sorry. No, they were sassy about it. They were like, well, if we do something great, we expect to be recognized and we expect our picture in the paper. Oh, my gosh.

I remember the features editor having to deal with. people like this at the newspaper. Really? Do you have any stories for us? I mean, not really, but there are just, there are people who want to be in the paper very badly, and they will harass the editor. Oh, man. Non-stop. So they're doing the weird competitive thing. And again, you think there's going to be a clear winner, but there's not because, yes, Abby and Mort had more money and more influence, but if you were at a party with both couples, it was Anne and Jules who really dazzled the folks. Jules was a salesman. He was charming. He knew how to make people have a good time. And Mort, well, God bless him, he'd never had to develop that skill.

Yeah. But who knows? It's possible that when Anne and Jules first moved to O'Clair, Anne did feel like she was back stuck in her twin's shadow, and maybe that was the thing that prompted her to find yet another way to differentiate herself. And that's when the woman who would one day they become and Landers decided that she was going into politics. Oh. Yeah. You weren't expecting that, were you? You were ready for the advice column to start.

I was. I was also thinking about how I had no idea the name of that town was pronounced O'Clair. Whenever I would see it, I would be like, oh, it's... Ew, Claire. Yeah. I had no idea how to say it. Disgusting. Or like, you, Claire.

Yeah. Or, yeah. Oh, Claire. I just, yeah. These are the downsides to never having taken French in high school. You and I are both screwed. I know omelet du frumage. Cheese omelet.

That's about it. So Anne wanted to go into politics. And it seemed like she'd be a great fit. She cared deeply about issues that affected everyday people. She was charming. She was a great negotiator. She was persuasive. She was an excellent public speaker.

Even though... We all heard that Red Cross speech. Yeah, but I do have to say, and this is rude. she and Abby, but especially, Anne, they had the weirdest voices. Really? Okay, some people, and they are rude, and I don't want to hear from them, some people refer to their voices as Midwestern. Get out! Get out and get fuck!

That is the rudest thing! How dare you? Can I listen? Please do. Go to YouTube and just search Anne Landers. You'll see an interview with her. Joe, if we could play the audio for folks and if any

of you even thinks about saying, oh, Kristen, I actually hear the similarities because you're Midwestern and you sound like that, don't you dare, bitch! All right, Ann Landers's advice columnist. Well, I have had to change but not because

there was any pressure on me to do so. I had to change because I felt that change is growth. And I wanted to grow. There's always more to learn. The world's a different world today, Jim, than it was 18 years ago when I started to write this column. Oh, that is what? That's upper Midwest accent. Yeah, it is. Yeah, for sure. It's all in the nose. Yeah. Anyhow, Anne started going to rallies for the

democracy. Hey, what happened? Wow, Kristen, your voice sounds angelic. I know people say it's hot. So Anne started going to rallies for the Democratic Party. She attended fundraisers. And in time, she became the head of the local Democratic Party Speakers Bureau. The real housewives of O'Clair, Wisconsin. Okay, so, so far in this episode, I've been a little hard on Abby, been talking about the little time she fudged her life story for no GD reason. Yeah.

Now let's talk about Anne. Because it's true that she was very involved in politics. But it's also true that throughout her life, she had a tendency to sit and wait and learn and see how things played out. And then later, be like, oh, oh, that thing that we all know was bad. Well, I knew it first and I was fighting against it the whole time, gosh darn it.

Like what? Okay, I've got an example for you. Around this time, when Anne was first getting into politics, Republican Senator Joe McCarthy was on his nutty, hunt to find all the communists. Oh, God. Future topic. Yes, we need to do that. You may remember him from our series on Lucille Ball. Mm-hmm. The man was a menace. He needed to be stopped. He's the reason we have the term McCarthyism. He's been seen for a long time as a total douche canoe, okay? And so... Yeah, I heard he had a ton of ass hair. It was embarrassing. What? Yeah. Yeah,

I heard his butt stank. Because of the hair or... All of it. It's all, it's all ties in. Well, Norm, You'll be glad to know that later in life, when Anne would talk about her work for the Democratic Party, she would imply that she was, you know, pretty at the forefront leading the fight against him. She was just so active in it. Really? All over it. After the fact. Yeah, because when you talk to people who were there with her, they're like, well, yeah, she was against Joe McCarthy,

but I don't know that she actually really did anything. She was against him but did nothing. Well, I mean, I think she's probably, you know, just to be real, probably like me, like I vote and stuff. But am I doing anything more than that? I mean, not really. But I'm also not going around and be like, I have been at the forefront. I've been leading the fight against authoritarianism. Why?

Because I voted in the last election. Who am I? How dare you ask? You know me. I've been your leader this whole time. Yeah. Okay. I get it.

So I'm throwing that out there to establish that Anne and Abby both cared a lot about what other people thought of them. They were very careful with their public narrative. And neither of them was above exaggerating or in some cases kind of just completely fabricating a story if they thought it would make them look good. Now, the thing that's not up for debate is that in the early 50s, Anne was making a name for herself in local politics. And incredibly, despite being a Jewish woman in the Midwest in the 1950s, she was nominated to become the chairperson of the county Democratic Committee. She initially turned it down. But something changed her mind, and her biographers suggests that it might have been her father's death that spurred her to action. Oh, Abraham died.

Yeah. Abraham died from cancer at just 64 years old. he'd always encouraged his daughters, but especially Anne, to do what they wanted to do, to be ambitious, to make a difference. So after initially turning down the nomination, Anne decided to accept it. The kind of weird thing is that no one expected her nomination to be controversial. Typically, the person who got nominated just got the job. It was a volunteer position. Oh, well, yeah.

Shouldn't be controversial. Yeah, the rest of the local party would typically just kind of fall in line and vote the person in. But that didn't happen here. And since Anne's political career is not the point of this series, I'm going to try to move kind of quickly. It's a little messy. Okay. Okay, so there was this big controversy

because the local union was having a tough time with Presto, the pressure cooker company. Oh, oh. Were they really called Presto? Did I just miss that detail? I guess. What do you know about Presto? Are you like a big pressure cooker fan?

Those are like still a thing. Well, yeah, this isn't like... Wow. We're not talking about the 1700s. I feel like my mom had a presto pressure cooker. I feel like you're going to go out and buy Phillips Vodka and a Presto Pressure cooker. And, you know, there are some other businesses involved here. I think you're just going to get all the accoutrema.

Wow. Man, I feel like I'm hearing a story about celebrities. Oh my gosh. You know what? You know how on like Instagram videos or YouTube videos, it's always like, I'll have the list of products in the... In the link in the description. Yeah. What if we had a list of products that everyone we don't?

Presto pressure cookers. Phillips distilling. Yeah. There will be more. Man, we really missed out not doing that at the J.C. Penny series. Boy, think of all that sweet Arizona jeans money we could be making. Hey, your mom shopped at J.C. Penny the other day and she said she found some great stuff. Norm, they're not sponsoring us.

You don't have to keep bragging about J.C. Penny. I know. I'm just saying. I feel like our series is making a difference in the world. Hey, capitalism. What if it was making a difference, but in a bad way? Oh, well, we wouldn't want that. If it was doing it in a bad way, we would push the self-destruct button.

The whole-timey podcast would have to explode. And we do have that button on the soundboard. It's not well labeled. So just look out, folks. If you ever don't hear from us, you'll know what happened. I don't want to accidentally press it. I do that sometimes. He meant to hit Hank Hill's button.

I meant to hit the bust button, but instead of self-destruct. Okay, so the local union, they were having a tough time with Presto, even though they made great pressure cookers. Norm's mom loved it. Hey, but if they're against the union, we're pro-union on this podcast. Okay, well, you're going to hate this next part. Okay, the union folks had every right to be pissed because the company was making incredible nuts-o money.

And that year, after a very, very good financial year, Presto management was like, um, hey, pores, we're going to cut your wages. We're just got to cut them. Don't get mad. My wife needs a skunk coat, and she's not going to settle for a skunk t-shirt. So, yeah, the union folks were like, are you kidding me? This lady is married to a Presto VP, and she's related through marriage to the people who own the company. She can't represent our best interests. Hell no, we will not vote for her.

Okay, okay. That's a valid reason, I think. Okay, get ready for less valid reasons. Okay. Because nothing can ever be nice and tidy on this podcast. They were also pretty sexist about it and also anti-Semitic. Isn't life grand. Hmm, damn. So of course, when the election came, Anne lost. But Anne went off. She went to the newspaper. and said that the election had been rigged. Whoa. It had been phony. Oh.

She said everyone stormed the Capitol. No, just kidding. Oh, wait a minute. She wasn't nuts. She demanded that the Wisconsin Administrative Committee hold another vote. So this is again where things get messy. Because she was right. Some of the people who had voted had voted where they worked, not where they lived.

So they hold this other vote. And she won. Wow. Now, that's also a little controversial because the union guys were like, who the hell are all these people? They're clearly like your Republican friends, management, a presto, who are now voting Democrat. It was a mess, a bit of a mess. So it kind of sucks because at first, when I read about the story, I was like, yay, Ann, go, wonderful. I'm so, what are the odds? She got elected. And then you read more into the details of the story. And it's

kind of a bummer because the election really came down to union versus management. And this was seen as a win for management. And ultimately, the big wigs at Presto were like, huh, you know what? We can just move our manufacturing to a super cheap non-union place in Texas and Mississippi. And that's how a thousand people lost their jobs. Tale as old as time. So to be clear, I am definitely not blaming that on Anne Landers. That was not her fault.

Yes, it is. No, it is. No, it's not. But I do think it would be shitty to be like, Oh, her political career was so cool. Nothing to see here, folks. Yeah. So, although it was messy,

Anne being named the chair of the county's Democratic Party was a big deal. It set her apart. And if we want to think about it this way, maybe above her sister for the first time in a long time. I mean, as far as accolades, maybe. Yeah. But Abby still had the money. Sure.

But now, Anne wasn't just the wife of a powerful man. She was a powerful woman in her own right, who also happened to be married to a powerful man. But maybe that wasn't enough. Maybe she needed more space from Abby. That's what Abby figured when Jules suddenly quit his job as vice president for Presto. Abby later said that Anne forced him to quit his job. Why? Exactly.

It's a volunteer position heading this Democratic committee? Right. Yeah, so like... And Abby's saying, my sister forced her husband to quit his job because she just couldn't stand to see me doing so well, you know, blah, blah, blah. Oh, stop it. Exactly.

That's what Anne says to. Anne said, that is ridiculous. She wasn't in control of her husband's decisions. She didn't make him quit his job. He had simply outgrown his job at Presto. And that does appear to be true. Jules had obviously done well at Presto, but he'd kind of gone about as high as he could go.

Now he's moving on to Crockpots. Oh, hold on. You're going to be thrilled with what he does next. Oh, shit, really? I got to finish this part, though. It was a family company. There weren't that many positions available above him. You know, so we decided to go.

Plus, he didn't want to be just a VP. He wanted to run a company. So, even though Anne had just fought so hard to earn an elected position, and she'd only actually served for six months, and apparently she took a pretty long vacation too, so it was, you know, anyhow. Cushy gig, huh? She and Jules and Margo moved to Chicago,

where Jules became the president of AutoPoint, maker of ballpoint pins. Whoa, I don't know that company. I think you do. Auto point? Yeah. Auto point pencil company. Oh, you know what?

I was thinking of autopilot. That's a different thing, isn't it? Yeah. AutoPoint is no longer in existence, my dear. Jules ran it into the ground. You son of a bitch. RIP AutoPoint. Okay, well, we can't put a affiliate link for that one.

We'll just send you to eBay, tell you to do your best. Yeah. Okay, so Jules is now in the ballpoint pen business. It's a very exciting time. A lot of sex and drugs and it's a wild line of work. They moved into a swanky apartment located at 1,000 Lakeshore Drive. Lakeshore Drive? Yeah, you just hear it and you're like, oh, okay.

Well, that is, was that building around when they moved there? That looks like a newish building. Well, anyway, that neighborhood, very nice. Yeah, not bad, huh? Mm-hmm. All of a sudden, Anne had her own staff. She had a lady who did the cooking and cleaning for her. It was all kind of fabulous.

For a minute, she tried to continue her political career in Chicago. But apparently they were like, no, get out of here. And when she persisted and got herself a meeting with the Democratic political boss, he was like, lady, seriously, stop. If you keep at this, you might end up in Lake Michigan wearing a cement ankle bracelet. Oh. Yeah. Was it just like corruption in Chicago?

Norm, do you know anything about Chicago politics? Rough times. I guess I don't. I mean, I know about Al Capone, but this is way after Al Capone. All I'm saying is she barely got elected in O'Claire. Hats off to her, but she barely got it. And then she goes to Chicago and she's like,

hey, I'm here. No, not happening. Okay, okay. Her political ambitions were crushed. Kind of dead in Chicago. She was bored. She needed meaning. She needed a purpose.

And why not? She was smart. She was ambitious. Her daughter was getting older now. She didn't require all that hands-on attention. And this story gets told a few different ways. But one of them is that Anne was reading the Chicago Sun Times, and she came across the advice column. It was written by a woman named Ruth Crawley. But she went by the pen name, Anne Landers. That advice column was pretty typical of columns of that time period. It was maybe a little stuffy, maybe a little boring. But, you know, Anne had taken a couple journalism classes in college. She'd taken a couple psychology classes, and she'd co-written the gossip column for the school newspaper. And yeah, she was 37 years old now when college felt

like a million years ago. But she figured, maybe I could help with the column. Be something to do. Well, she's 37. Her life's basically over. Oh, we can all agree to that. So she called up the paper to ask if the advice columnist was in need of an assistant. And that's when she found out that Ruth Crowley, the woman who'd been writing that column for 12 years, had suddenly died two weeks earlier. Whoa. The newspaper was currently holding a contest for who would take over as the new Anne Landers. Damn, the timing. That's like fate right there. I agree. Do you believe in fate? I don't know, but I... So I actually wrote in the script originally that it was fate, but then I thought, well, poor Ruth, is that disrespectful to her? I don't know how fate works and what the rules are, but it does feel strange.

It's not about Ruth. It's not about, I don't want to call her Ann Landers, because Ruth was Anne Landers too. Sure. This is Anne Landersception right here. We are through the looking glass right now. All we have is our ballpoint pins to comfort us. It's a weird time. But yeah, it's about Popo. What? Is it Popo?

Yeah. Abby, uh-huh. No, no, no, no. No, no. Epi. Epi. I thought I was making it so much easier by giving you their names

and then switching fairly early in this story. Yeah, but Ruth is also Anne Landers. I know, I know. There's two Anne-Landers right now. Well, there's one and then there's a future Anne-Landers. Sure. Anyway. Eppy.

This is not about Ruth. Ruth's fate, this is about Epi's fate to become the next Anne Landers. How do you know she becomes the next Anne Landers? I guess I don't. Is it because I ruined it by calling her Anne Landers? Oh, you're right. Shit. I'm so confused right now.

Okay, so that's the kind of funny thing about this, is I'm about to tell you about how she applied for the job, and it was a real tough contest. Jeez, guess who wins? Yeah, yeah. So the contest was taxed. technically closed. But Anne knew she had to enter. She had to win. And oh, wow, what is she won? She'd become a syndicated advice columnist. She'd be able to help people. She'd have her

picture in the newspaper every freaking day. Every day. And not just one newspaper, multiple newspapers, because that's what syndication means, baby. Oh, it'd be a dream. It'd be so swell, and it'd be hers, hers and hers alone. And it next, week's episode. Anne gets her column. But then Abby gets one too. Oh, can't let Anne have a column. I've got to have one too.

This is nuts. What do you think so far? Very exciting. Everyone, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed with this story. I think it's so wild. Oh my gosh. I hope people are into it.

Do love a good sibling rivalry. Norm, could we wrap up with me reading you? one of my favorite columns from Dear Abby. Yeah. This is like when they do the best of, this is one of them. Okay. Dear Abby, two men who claimed to be father and adopted son just bought an old mansion across the street and fixed it up.

We notice a very suspicious mixture of company coming and going at all hours. Blacks, whites, Asians, women who look like men and men who look like women? this has always been considered one of the finest sections of San Francisco and these weirdos are giving it a bad name. How can we improve our neighborhood? Signed Nob Hill Residence. What do you think she said back? Abby. Yeah, what did Abby say back?

You suck. How about you move? Oh. You loser. Dear residents, you could move. There it is. Yes. See, this is why you landers.

Was that all she said? That's it. And that's the beauty. Oh, I'm getting ahead of myself. The beauty of it is how concise they would get. Yeah. It's so cutting. Oh, you could move.

Oh. I love that. Love it. Speaking my language, Abby. Mm-hmm. Kristen, great episode. Looking forward to seeing what happens next. Yeah.

And I'm also looking forward to hearing about how they went from, you know, dear sisters to we're not talking to each other. Well, I think we all, you know, we're sniffing it out. I mean, there's rumblings right now. Yeah, but oh. But I'm just wondering what's the breaking point? What is it that ends it? Yeah, you'll find out.

All right, well, let's wrap up this episode, Kristen. Okay. You know what they say about history hoes? We always cite our sources. That's right. For this episode, I got my information from articles in Life magazine, ladies' home journal, CNN, the Washington Post, the New York Times,

book, Dear Anne, Dear Abby, the unauthorized biography of Anne Landers and Abigail Van Buren by Jan Potker and Bob Speciali. That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to an old-timey podcast. Please give us a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. And while you're at it, subscribe. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash old-timey podcast. Join the Reddit community, R-slash-old-timey podcast. Follow us on Facebook and YouTube and Instagram.

old-timey podcast you can also follow us individually on Instagram I'm at Kristen Pitts Caruso and he's at gaming historian and until next time Tudaloo Tata and Cheerio sounds like someone struggling for power oh sorry that's perfect sorry oh bye bye hit the wrong button that's great