Bernice Gordon, who delighted, bedeviled and sometimes outraged aficionados of the crossword puzzle during a six-decade career unusual not only for its longevity but the artfulness of her brain-teasing constructions, died Thursday at her Philadelphia home. She was 101.

Gordon’s first crossword was published in The New York Times in 1952. Over the next decades she created hundreds of puzzles for major newspapers across the country. Her work also appeared in books. Crosswords “make my life,” she said last year. “I couldn’t live without them.”

Until two weeks before her death she was still producing a puzzle a day, usually between 3 and 6 a.m. She had shelves of dictionaries, almanacs and other tools of her trade, and constructed her puzzles on a computer, having given up paper and pencil when she was nearly 90.