Crossword creator a pioneer
Bernice Gordon made a puzzle grid a day for decades
PHILADELPHIA — Bernice Gordon, a prolific crossword constructor whose puzzles were published in major newspapers and brain-teaser books, has died at the age of 101.
Gordon died at her Philadelphia home on Jan. 29, her son Jim Lanard said. A private memorial service was planned, he said.
Born Jan. 11, 1914 in the Philadelphia neighbourhood of Germantown and a University of Pennsylvania graduate, Gordon raised three children before working as an artist and travelling around the world.
She began creating the puzzles in her 30s after the death of her first husband to help cope with her grief and because she enjoyed the mental challenge.
She told The Pennsylvania Gazette in 2012: “My life suddenly became very, very empty … When I was by myself one night, I had a thought: I do a crossword puzzle every day. Suppose I try making one. So I tried one and it was easy.”
Her puzzles were published in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and elsewhere including puzzle books from Dell and Simon & Schuster.
In an interview on her 100th birthday a year ago, she said constructing and solving the puzzles and being a cruciverbalist — as crossword creators are known — “make my life” and that she constructed a new puzzle grid every day.
Gordon is credited with pioneering the rebus puzzle, which requires solvers to occasionally use symbols instead of letters. Her first rebus in the Times used an ampersand to represent the letters AND, so an answer like SANDWICH ISLANDS had to be entered as S&WICH ISL&S.
Readers reacted strongly in hundreds of letters, some complaining that it was cheating and other applauding the novel approach, she said.
“It’s something new. It was an innovation,” Gordon said.
Among the scores of Gordon’s grids that the Times has published since her 1952 debut was a 2013 collaboration with teenage constructor David Steinberg, a regular Times contributor. Steinberg said the puzzle that emerged blended Gordon’s deep classical knowledge and his penchant for modern language.
“Our styles are a bit different in that way, but we still had a lot of fun collaborating,” he said.
Peter Mucha, a former Inquirer reporter who wrote a story about Gordon in 1995 and remained friends with her, said he was impressed that she used computer programs to develop crossword puzzles. And he often marvelled at the breadth of her vocabulary.
“She would just pull these obscure words out of a hat,” Mucha said.