06/03/2024
Hi All, My amazing Mother passed away this February 14 @ the age of 99. She didn't want a funeral. My Brothers and I will be getting together to celebrate her life at a future time. If you are a long time friend there is a good chance you met and knew my Mom, Selma. She always enjoyed my friends and more than one of you went and spent time with my Parents when passing through the area where they lived. I have always enjoyed the thought of my friends spending time with my parents. My Mom continued to ask for each of you over the many years. It's special to have a parent your friends enjoy. Here is her obituary and a photo taken last summer. It's fitting as she is waving goodbye. Goodbye Mom. I love you.
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Selma Wilder Bernstein, 1924-2024
Selma Wilder Bernstein, a lifelong Philadelphian and a long term resident of Waverly, died in Bryn Mawr Hospital, Wednesday February 14th, 2024, she was 99 years old. The daughter of Charles and Anna Hana Wilder, a 1945 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she was the widow of Herbert J. Bernstein (1916-1994), whom she married in 1948. Selma moved from Penn Valley to Waverly Heights, the retirement community, in 2006, living independently for many years there, first in a gracious apartment, and for the last few months of her life in nursing area, to which she adapted with grace.
A dutiful suburban wife, mother, and daughter, an extensive traveler, a constant reader, a careful investor, a stylish dresser and home decorator, a liberal person attentive to civic affairs, a giver to interesting charities, interested in art, a person very familiar with the late 20th century affairs of Philadelphia She was an independent but outgoing personality, noted for her positive attitude, a good friend to many and notably able to connect to all sorts of people.
Among other ventures Selma traveled twice to Cuba, once to relatively undeveloped West and North African countries, to the Canadian Rockies, a number of times to both Spain and to Mexico, a journey quite far north in Alaska, to Malta and Sicily, a boat voyage down the Danube to Bulgaria and Romania from the Black Forest to the Black Sea, once to the Gaspe in Quebec. She took her then young family on a mid-1960’s European vacation marked by grand hotels in capital cities and climaxed by an ocean liner crossing to return home.
Her later taste in literature was notably marked by a passion for women’s memoirs of World War II, of which she had a large collection and she had met several of the authors.
She was predeceased by her two brothers, Marshall Wilder and Spencer Wilder and their wives and was the mother of Robert W. Bernstein, of Bristol, Vermont, of Daniel S. Bernstein, of Wellesley, Massachusetts, and of Marcia S. Bernstein, of Pownal, Maine. She was the grandmother of three, the step-grandmother of two, and the great-grandmother of three.
Her wishes were for cremation and for no public service or other public remembrance.
