DEAR ABBY DIES (SHE WAS ALIVE?)-R I P -94

"CNN) -- Pauline Phillips, better known to millions of newspaper readers for decades as the Dear Abby advice columnist, has died after a long battle with Alzheimer's Disease, her family said Thursday.

She died Wednesday in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at age 94.

Phillips' columns were published in an era when newspaper readers began to prize straight-talking, pithy advice about marriages, children, jobs -- just about anything that troubled people.

Phillips wrote under the pen name of Abigail Van Buren, shortened to "Dear Abby" in newspapers. "Abigail" was taken from the wise woman in the Old Testament and "Van Buren" was one of her favorite presidents.

The first Dear Abby column appeared in 1956, and Phillips continued writing the advice feature until 2000...

THIS ARTICLE IS BY MICHAEL MARTINEZ (not related--lol)