SIOUX CITY | Millions of people outside Sioux City likely knew the nation's advice columnist Ann Landers separately from her equally famous sister, Dear Abby.
For years, most newspapers published one column or the other, but not both. It was a different story in Sioux City. Ann and Abby always were known as "the twins" -- Esther "Eppie" Pauline Friedman (Ann) and Pauline "Popo" Esther Friedman (Abby). You couldn't say one's name without mentioning the other's.
That was because the sisters grew up at 1722 Jackson St., went to Central High School and attended Morningside College, where they usually were in the limelight and always together.
In 1930, their picture was published in the Journal when they were 11 years old. The story announced the girls would present "a specialty song and dance number" at Shaare Zion synagogue, along with another girl, Jackie Merline. Jackie's picture wasn't included, although the story said, "All are well known as clever juvenile entertainers."
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The twins even got married in a double ceremony on July 2, 1939, at Shaare Zion, where they wore identical wedding gowns.
The point of their togetherness seemed to be well taken by a reporter for the Washington Post who covered Central High's 50th class reunion in 1986. The stars of the gathering? Eppie Lederer and Popo Phillips.
In an article published June 23, 1986, the reporter noted they were known as the Friedman twins, "as nearly everyone calls them here. ... Classmates kept asking, 'When are the twins getting in?'"
The reporter remarked on the sisters' characteristic speaking voices, saying they talked "with an Iowa twang giving an edge to their opinions, and practical as the blade of a plow."
People remembered both women after Abby died 2013 in Minneapolis after a long struggle with Alzheimer's disease. She was 94. Ann died in 2002 in Chicago from cancer.
Eppie and Popo often said they were proud of their Sioux City roots, visited through the years and gave a number of interviews to Journal reporters.
They were feisty, frank and funny.
In a story that ran on their 80th birthday, on July 4, 1998, in the Journal, Ann attributed her good health to working out, eating right, continuing to work and never drinking or smoking. Abby said she never dwelled on age and credited "good genes."
They succeeded in living long, full and interesting lives.
Ann was always upset that Abby slipped into her line of work but, really, they were cut from the same cloth and wrote for the Morningside College newspaper as "The Campus Rat."
Abby was big in the Democratic Party before turning to print; Ann later became a sounding board for many presidents.
Supposedly they feuded, but neither would bad-mouth the other.
Aside from that folksy advice they delivered, the twins imparted another lesson: That it's possible for someone from Sioux City, Iowa, to make an impact on a worldwide scale.
