Education: Puzzling

Most women can get the last word. Not all can get the correct word. A national crossword puzzle contest is no place for sisters of Mrs. Malaprop. To that notorious assassin of correct speech, however. Mrs. Ruth F. von Phul, Manhattan housewife and onetime Wellesley College student, last week proved herself no relation. At the national women’s crossword puzzle championship, held last week in the auditorium of John Wanamaker’s store, Manhattan, she was the first of 200 entrants to hand in a complete construction of the crossword puzzle proposed.

In an open qualifying round to select a challenger to meet William Stern II, world’s champion puzzler (TIME, Sept. 29), Mrs. von Phul was runner-up to C. F. Hunter, of Sound Beach, Conn. Before the challenge round was played, Hunter had to rush for his afternoon train. So Mrs. von Phul stepped to the blackboard,* climbed her ladder, chalked up a solution several consonants and a number of vowels ahead of Puzzler Stern. As world’s champion, Puzzler von Phul was thereupon showered with puzzle books, dictionaries, medals, flattery. Said she: “I don’t know where I got my skill.”

Puzzler Stern and his wife (who advocates vocabulary jousts as an antidote to divorce) became national mixed doubles champions.

*In world’s championship crossword puzzle contests, the early rounds are played on paper, the finals on large blackboards.