Jeanne Phillips - Personal Life

Personal Life

Jeanne Phillips was born to Pauline Phillips, the founder of Dear Abby, and Morton Phillips in 1942. She has a brother, Edward "Eddie" Phillips, who is about two years her junior. When she was three years old, her family moved from Minnesota to Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Phillips attended elementary school at Hillsborough, California. For the first two years of secondary education, she attend Burlingame High School. After her sophomore year, she transferred to Crystal Springs Uplands School and attended the private school for one year. Shortly thereafter, her family moved back to Twin Cities in Minnesota, so her father would be able to take the helm of her feeble grandfather's liquor-distribution business. For her senior year in high school, she attended Washburn High School in Minneapolis. Phillips enjoyed the school, saying, "I loved it. I was never the most popular girl in the class. I never aspired to be. But I did make very nice friends." In college, she majored in English and anthropology. She studied anthropology at the University of Colorado and UCLA though did not work in the field. She attempted interior design but ultimately decided it was unsatisfactory.

Phillips' aunt, Eppie Lederer—Pauline's twin sister and the final columnist of the Ask Ann Landers advice column—died in June 2002. In addition to penning a tribute column, Phillips read a poem about her aunt on Larry King Live. In an interview with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in 2001, Lederer said: "Jeanne has been working with her mother for 20 years, and it seems to be a perfect fit." Lederer's daughter, Margo Howard, writes an advice column . After Phillips' appearance on Larry King Live, her cousin Howard censured her. Phillips said: "The term a lot of people have been using is feud. All I can say, and this is from my heart to yours, there's no feud on my part. I wish my cousin the best."

Phillips married a "brilliant, charming, talented" man in the 1970s, a California lawyer, but the marriage was not successful. She planned to remain single but later fell in love again. In 2002, she married her second husband, a real estate agent named Walter Harris. Every day, Phillips reads the letters sent to her Dear Abby column and pens her column in the afternoon. In the evenings, she either cooks or goes out to dinner with her husband. When asked who her Dear Abby was, Phillips replied that her husband is her "primary support" and her friends were her "secondary support".

She has largely kept her personal life to herself, with only occasional references to it while advising people or during interviews. In comparison to her cousin, Margo Howard, Phillips has been called "reserved".

According to a 2002 interview, Phillips and her husband have no children. Her date of birth has not been made public. She said in a 2002 interview that she is "younger than springtime". Phillips lives in Los Angeles, California. In 2002, the Phillips family revealed that Jeanne's mother, Pauline, had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Tim Johnson, a medical journalist for ABC News, wrote in February 2010 that Pauline resides with her husband, Morton, in Minnetonka, Minnesota and has caregivers. Pauline's son, Eddie, said:

We call them angels because they are who are with her 24/7. She watches a lot of television. She loves visitors. She loves to get out. And when she gets out she still wears her Dear Abby sweatshirt and loves to smile and wave and blow kisses.

Phillips is Jewish. In her column, she writes holiday greetings to people of all religions and occasionally gives advice to people based on their religion.