The etiquette expert Elizabeth Post, known for writing books and magazine columns on manners, has died. She was 89.

She died last Saturday in the southwest Florida city of Naples. She was actually the granddaughter-in-law of the country’s foremost etiquette expert, Emily Post. In 1965, five years after the elder Post passed away, Elizabeth took the helm at the Emily Post Institute in Burlington, Vt.
Her daughter-in-law, Peggy Post called her by her nickname:
“Libby was very open minded, fair and flexible…She was full of common sense and kindness. Not at all pretentious and not at all stuffy.”
Born in Englewood, N.J. in 1920, Post married William Goadby Post in 1944. He was the grandchild of Emily Post, who wrote the book “Emily Post’s Etiquette” in 1922.
In the 1960s, manners and social mores were becoming more relaxed, perhaps to a fault. This is when Elizabeth Post made her strike.
“So much was changing…Libby kept that core message of etiquette going. Those principles of being respectful and considerate are important”
Said Peggy Post.
Along with revising “Emily Post’s Etiquette” no less than five times, Post also wrote several of her own books. Her wedding etiquette books were the most popular. She also wrote a column in Good Housekeeping magazine for 25 years.
About etiquette, Post insisted that it should not be something which is,
“Restrictive or unpleasant…Etiquette is meant to smooth the path between people to better relationships.”
Post retired from the Emily Post Institute in 1995 and spent winters in Florida and summers in Vermont with her husband. Around the year 2000, Post and her husband called Naples their full-time home. Peggy Post said that her mother-in-law a “really gifted artist,” who loved doing watercolor paintings.



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