Selma W Bernstein

March 1, 2024

Selma Wilder Bernstein, 1924-2024

Selma Wilder Bernstein, a lifelong Philadelphian and a long term resident of

Waverly Heights, 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.