Mary E. Brindamour, at 87; maker of crossword puzzles
Mary Ellen (Cowan) Brindamour started doing crossword puzzles about the time she retired from work in her mid-50s. But, her family said, her steel-trap mind solved them so easily she became bored and eventually decided to make up her own.
Instead of doing the puzzles, she constructed them and sold them to newspapers and magazines so others could solve them.
Mrs. Brindamour, who plotted out her crossword grids and clues with the strategic flair of an army general, died of pneumonia March 16 at Brooksby Village in Peabody. She was 87. She had been a lifelong resident of Lynn until she and her husband moved to Brooksby in 2001.
Her family said Mrs. Brindamour started constructing crossword puzzles in 1990, when she was 70, and continued to do so until 2003.
Will Shortz, crossword editor at The
Six of her puzzles were published in The New York Times in the 1990s, he said. The Boston Globe also published some.
"Mary was one of the best makers of easy, lively puzzles," Shortz said by phone, adding that the word "easy" was not a put-down. "It is much more difficult to create a great easier puzzle than a great medium one because the easy puzzle has to be just as clever but is more restrictive in vocabulary."
He recalled one of her puzzles. "It was an amazing feat of construction," he said. "All the answers were on the left side of the grid. For example, 'tap' [on the left] became 'pat' on the right."
Shortz first met Mrs. Brindamour at a National Puzzlers' League convention where she was often accompanied by Andrew, her husband of 64 years until his death in 2005. Their son, Paul E. of Rockport, said his father was not that interested in puzzles but was "very supportive of my mother."
Since serious puzzlers use a nom de plume, his mother chose "Luv" because the last part of her name, "amour," means "love" in French. Other puzzlers dubbed her husband "Spoonful." They became "Luv n' Spoonful," recalling the popular New York-based rock group of the mid-1960s, "Lovin' Spoonful."
After constructing grids on paper, Mrs. Brindamour made a smooth transition to constructing them online. She did so for www.GarfieldGames.com, a site owned by Paws Inc., from 1997 to 2003, according to Marilynn Huret, an editor for the website.
"Mary's puzzles were always a delight with our solvers," said Huret. "All the puzzles she sent us are themed. This means they have at least three and sometimes more larger clue words or phrases with similar threaded entries in the puzzle grid."
Women constructors were not always that prevalent, Huret said. "Originally constructors and editors were mostly male, while solvers were mainly women. This is a balance that is slowly evening out."
Mrs. Brindamour was born in Lynn to Roscoe J. and Gertrude H. (Sheehan) Cowan. "Mother came from a relatively poor, hardworking family of Irish-Scottish immigrants with not much formal education," her son, Paul E. of Rockport, said. But they saw to it that their children were educated. She graduated from St. Mary's High School in 1937, excelling in geometry.
After earning an associate's degree in secretarial work from Becker College in Worcester in 1939, she worked in the payroll department at
On his return, the Brindamours built a home in Lynn and Mrs. Brindamour stopped work to take care of their children. Her daughter, Claire M. Bravo of Beverly, the youngest of their children, said that as soon as she began school, her mother went back to work at GE, taking on what was then an unlikely job for a woman.
Her son said she was assigned as an engineering technician in the aircraft engine groups. "Mother always liked mathematics," he said, "and was very meticulous about details. Once she showed me mathematical graphs she had done explaining the mathematical function on engine performance. They were quite extraordinary."
Later she worked in the technical library at GE in its former West Lynn plant, her son said. After that, she worked for
Her daughter said her mother would still be constructing puzzles if she had not been afflicted with arthritis in her hands during the last five years of her life. In the end, her daughter said, Mrs. Brindamour left behind many notes directing her family where certain things were, the last clues her fertile mind would create.
Besides her son and her daughter, Mrs. Brindamour leaves another daughter, Lois A. Belliveau of Lynn; five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Services have been held. 