The central answer in the puzzle was AGE DIFFERENCE. The most recent appeared last summer when she teamed up with teenage constructor David Steinberg, a regular contributor to the Times. Since then, the paper has printed more than 140 of her clever grids. She remembers one long answer was MAMIE EISENHOWER. Records are a bit sketchy - the Times didn't give constructors bylines until the 1990s - but it seems her first crossword was published in the early 1950s. 'My child if you spend as much money on cookbooks as you do on dictionaries, your family would be better off,' Gordon recalled her mother saying. She began creating puzzles in her 30s because she liked the challenge and it offered some extra pocket money.įarrar was not impressed with her first few attempts, and neither was Gordon's mother. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she raised three children before working as an artist and traveling around the world. 'And the others (said) how wonderful it was. 'She got hundreds of letters, some screaming that they never saw anything worse and it was cheating,' Gordon said. Letters poured into then-crossword editor Margaret Farrar, who forwarded some to Gordon. Though now considered standard fare, such a trick was unheard of when it first appeared decades ago. Her first rebus in the Times used an ampersand to represent the letters AND, so an answer like SANDWICH ISLANDS was entered as S&WICH ISL&S. She's credited with pioneering the 'rebus' puzzle, which requires solvers to occasionally fill in symbols instead of letters. The grids have evolved a lot since then, thanks in part to Gordon.

Ny times crossword editor margaret