Filling the etiquette Post: Elizabeth remembered for gracefully continuing tradition

Nerves rattled the future Elizabeth Post on the day she was to meet her fiance’s grandmother.

Writer Emily Post cut an intimidating figure. Author of the quintessential guide to American etiquette, writer of a syndicated newspaper column on the subject and former host of a radio show heard across the nation, Post’s name was synonymous with taste and good graces. Now, Elizabeth, known by friends and family as “Libby,” was to marry Post’s only grandchild.

Her nerves were immediately dashed away by Post’s warmth.

“As soon as Libby and Emily met, Emily gave her a big hug,” Peggy Post, daughter-in-law of Elizabeth Post, recalled on Monday.

It was an informal transfer that would later become official, when in 1965 Elizabeth Post lifted the torch as queen of etiquette, revising Emily’s books, penning articles on manners and directing the Emily Post Institute in Vermont. The embrace was also a window into the Post family.

“They really exemplify what etiquette is all about,” said Peggy Post, who married Libby’s son, Allen. “It’s about making people feel comfortable.”

Elizabeth Post died on Saturday in Naples at 89. Fifteen years out of retirement, she lived with her husband, William Goadby Post, in Bentley Village, where she found pleasure in golfing, fishing and painting.

If some knew her for her past, others knew Post as an enthusiastic learner and active participant.

“I remember she made a comment about you never stop learning, you never stop growing, and (how) the arts are wonderful in that way,” Susan Bridges, president of the Art League of Bonita Springs, recalled. “And I remember thinking, ‘Okay, can I clone you?’”

In her career, as in retirement, Post thought progressively about etiquette and manners. She wrote at a time when social mores were under scrutiny, as youth challenged the roles of men and women in the workplace, in relationships and inside the home.

“She really wrote a lot about women entering the business world in droves,” Peggy Post said. “She wrote about people living together without being married.”

Etiquette and manners were fluid, changing with time, Post believed. She would later tackle same-sex relationships, public breastfeeding and the etiquette of second and third weddings. By her retirement in 1995, Post had revised Emily Post’s Etiquette five times, authored more than a dozen books on etiquette and penned a monthly column for Good Housekeeping.

Peggy Post has since assumed many of those duties, and with her husband and Elizabeth Post’s other children and grandchildren, she helps run institute activities. Family members occasionally consulted Elizabeth Post on some of the harder questions, Peggy and Allen Post recalled. Post, in turn, kept current with the etiquette issues of the day.

“She was just always fascinated about the kind of questions we receive today,” Allen Post said.

As Elizabeth Post reached her own stature as an etiquette expert, she found herself approached with the same kind of timidity she had when first meeting her predecessor. With the same disarming nature, Post swept away their fears.

“She was just a kind, gentle person,” Allen Post said.

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