Bernice Gordon, a self-described ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ who over the last six decades contributed some 150 crossword puzzles to The New York Times, died on Thursday at her home in Philadelphia. She was 101.
Her son, Bruce Lanard, confirmed her death.
Mrs. Gordon was The Times’s oldest cruciverbalist, as those who ply her trade are known, and its longest-serving. One of the best-known crossword creators in the country, she also contributed puzzles to The Wall Street Journal, The Philadelphia Inquirer and, via syndication, to newspapers throughout the United States. Her work was also collected in book form.
To the end of her life, Mrs. Gordon created a puzzle a day, toiling in the wee hours of the morning — her favorite time — at her home in Philadelphia, borne along on a sea of reference books. She worked by hand, on graph paper, for decades before switching to a computer when she was about 90.
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Mrs. Gordon objected on linguistic grounds: She knew only a single dirty word. (How many letters it contained she did not say.)
Ms. Hollander supplied a list of them, with definitions, and Mrs. Gordon gamely took it from there.
A version of this article appears in print on January 31, 2015, on page D8 of the New York edition with the headline: Bernice Gordon, 101, Who Toyed With Words. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
