Bernice Gordon, 101, crossword puzzle genius and artist

WHAT'S A seven-letter word for legend?

Try "BERNICE."

That would be Bernice Gordon, who became a legend by creating crossword puzzles, up until the age of 101, that appeared in many major U.S. newspapers for 63 years.

More than 120 of her puzzles were published in the New York Times, which always claimed to have the most difficult, a challenge to the big-brain word masters and mistresses who dig this challenging sport.

Bernice, a Philadelphia native, was 101 when she died Jan. 29. Her last puzzle for the Times appeared in August. The first was printed in 1952. But her final puzzle was published in December in the Los Angeles Times.

Her puzzles also have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Inquirer, and in book form. A syndicate sends them to newspapers throughout the country.

Even in her later years, confined to wheelchair and walker, Bernice continued to crank out puzzles; her goal being one a day, eventually using a computer after years of doing them by hand on graph paper.

She was living at the Atria Center, an assisted-living facility at Logan Square, where she taught a course in crossword solving to fellow residents.

It takes a certain quirky mental prowess to do crossword puzzles. Puzzle addicts know, or can guess, things like "one doing nocturnal dental work" is a TOOTHFAIRY, and a square meal is RAVIOLI.

Who would have guessed?

With this in mind, how much more of a mental quirk is needed to design them?

Whatever it was, Bernice found tremendous satisfaction in her work, which she started as a widowed mother of two young sons at age 35, looking for something to occupy her days besides diapers, teething rings and 1950s vintage TV (although she liked Milton Berle). She always enjoyed doing crossword puzzles, why not try making them?

Her first efforts were rejected by Margaret Farrar, the first puzzle editor of the Times. But Bernice persisted and eventually her first puzzle was accepted by the Times. She recalled that she was paid $10 or $15. Later in her career, she received several hundred dollars per puzzle.

Bernice's mother was not supportive of her daughter's new career. She told Bernice, "If you would spend as much time on cookbooks instead of crosswords, your family would be happier."

Bernice, of course, didn't listen. She also was an artist with a fine-arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Her artworks are treasured by family and friends.

Born Bernice Biberman, she was raised in Germantown. Her father was a Russian immigrant who arrived penniless in the United States, sold pencils on the streets of Philadelphia and rose to become a vice president of L'Aiglon, a dressmaker at 15th and Mount Vernon streets.

Her two older sisters studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, but when Bernice's turn for higher education came, the Great Depression was raging and she settled for Penn.

Bernice was widowed twice. Her first husband, Benjamin Lanard, a Realtor, died at 52 when she was 32. After she began making puzzles, she married Allen Gordon, who also died at 52, when she was 52, of the same disease, liver cancer, and at the same hospital.

Bernice was given an unexpected challenge when she was asked to create naughty puzzles by Xaviera "The Happy Hooker" Hollander.

Bernice complained that she knew only one dirty word, but Hollander supplied a list, and Bernice did the puzzles. It was unclear what Hollander did with them, but when Bernice met her, she was charmed by the woman's kindness and generosity.

Bernice caused a stir in the puzzle world when she began to use an ampersand in place of the word "and," such as SC&INAVIA and CARMENMIR&A.

Some puzzle doers hated it; others found it challenging, but it attested to the fact that Bernice was always ahead of her time and looking for new ways of doing things.

In recent years, she collaborated with a teenage puzzle genius named David Steinberg, now 19. Born in Philadelphia, David sold his first puzzle to the New York Times at age 14.

Steinberg and Bernice collaborated on three puzzles, and they became legendary as the world's oldest and youngest puzzle-making team.

Bernice is survived by a daughter, Amanda D'Amico; a son, Bruce "Jim" Lanard; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. Another son, Benjamin Lanard, died in Spain at age 76.

Services: Will be private.