Sioux City, Iowa was the hometown of twin sisters, Esther Pauline Friedman and Pauline Esther Friedman. They were born on July 4, 1918. I’m sure you’ve heard of them. Both were newspaper columnists and are better known for their pen names: Ann Landers (Esther) and Dear Abby (Pauline). At the beginning of their journalistic careers, they received “55,000 letters each week and had an estimated 200 million readers.”1
On April 2nd, something has been celebrated since 1989. Every year, April 2nd is National Reconciliation Day. Ann would dedicate the column for the day to helping people restore broken relationships and share stories of those who made amends. It would seem that Ann should have taken her own advice!
Three months after Esther began her career and showed that the nation was responding well to her column, Pauline thought she could make a go of the same career. Two sisters doing the same thing in the public arena of media resulted in an unwanted competition that would destroy the sisters’ best friend relationship.
“From the beginning, Esther allegedly saw Pauline’s move as undermining and even hostile to her blossoming career. And although they didn’t want to be pitted against each other, media at the time took their competing columns and ran with it, comparing their writing styles and preferring one over the other (such as The Times reporting that Dear Abby was “slicker, quicker, and flipper” than Ann Landers). To keep the rivalry to a minimum, they attempted a truce by agreeing not to vie for syndication against one another in other U.S. cities.
“That all went down the drain over one newspaper in particular: their hometown newspaper. In 1956, it came out that Pauline allegedly offered Dear Abby to the Sioux City Journal at a reduced rate, under one condition: that they promise not to run Ann Landers.
“The sisters didn’t speak again for ten years… The sisters met again publicly in 1964 for their 25th wedding anniversaries, reconciling some of their differences, but the rivalry never fully died. Esther claimed to have never read a single Dear Abby column in a 1979 TV appearance; two years later, Pauline called her sister inferior and envious in a magazine interview.”2
The feud between “Ann” and “Dear Abby” continued until their deaths. However, death didn’t end the feud. Both columns were continued by Esther and Pauline’s daughters. Not only were the columns continued by the second generation, the feud continued as well like of a modern version of the Hatfields and McCoys.
How many people did Ann and Abby help through the years, yet the ladies couldn’t seem to help themselves?
God’s advice isn’t advice. It’s a command and He commands brothers and sisters in Christ to reconcile their differences. Matthew 5:23-24 says, “Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; (24) Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.”
Bible commentator Albert Barnes writes: “This means to settle the difficulty; to make proper acknowledgment or satisfaction for the injury. If you have wronged him, make
restitution. If you owe him a debt which ought to be paid, pay it. If you have injured his character, confess it and seek pardon. If he is under an erroneous impression, if your conduct has been such as to lead him to suspect that you have injured him, make an explanation. Do all in your power; and all you ought to do, to have the matter settled.”
God does not receive the worship of believers who aren’t talking to one another. Instead, we must put into practice Ephesians 4:31-32. Swallow your pride. Surrender your need to be right or vindicated. Stop pouting and nursing your wounds. “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: (32) And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
1https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/entertainment/2021/09/20/famous-iowans-sioux-city-twin-sisters-penned-dear-abby-ann-landers-advice-columns/8418136002/
2https://bookriot.com/dear-abby-and-ann-landers/
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