C. Patricia Chadwick Bruder, 93, Phila. hotel royalty

Every girl may dream of growing up to wear a long gown and pose for pictures at the foot of a curving staircase. C. Patricia Chadwick Bruder was able to do that.

Every girl also may dream of being able to throw a party for 50 at the drop of a hat, with shrimp, cocktails, and liveried waiters. Mrs. Chadwick Bruder did that, too.

But, despite these trappings of royalty, Mrs. Chadwick Bruder knew how lucky she was to live and raise a family in Philadelphia's most regal hotels - the Bellevue Stratford and the Benjamin Franklin.

"She loved every minute of her life," said her son, William G. Chadwick Jr. "She was acutely aware that it was a special life, and she was always grateful. I never saw evidence it went to her head."

Mrs. Chadwick Bruder, 93, a sparkling conversationalist, intrepid volunteer, and wife of a leading Philadelphia hotelier, died Sunday, Jan. 27, of a heart attack at Cadbury at Cherry Hill, a Quaker senior-care center.

Until retiring to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in 2001, Mrs. Chadwick Bruder was a resident of Center City and Berwyn. She grew up in the St. James Hotel at 13th and Walnut Streets, where her father, an Irish immigrant named Michael Boden, was manager.

In the early 1900s, hoteliers and their families "lived on property," as it was called, so they could solve overnight calls for service or maintenance problems.

By adulthood, Mrs. Chadwick Bruder had acquired the graces needed to move in refined social circles.

"My mother was vivacious and charming," said her son. "She accompanied her dad all through her youth to the hotel's balls."

After newcomer William G. Chadwick dropped out of the Wharton School to become a bellhop at the St. James, he met, fell for, and married the manager's daughter in 1940.

Chadwick, a striver, became manager of the Bellevue in 1955. A year later, he went to the Ben Franklin and in 1970 moved back with his family to the Bellevue.

"We had a five-bedroom suite on the top floor, seven-day maid service, and room service, or we could go down to one of two dining rooms," said her son. "When we were little, we had a sandbox on the roof where we played."

Mrs. Chadwick Bruder and her husband attended two dozen black-tie charity events a year; they raised money for Catholic schools and charities; and she donned colonial garb to conduct tours of Independence National Historical Park. She also volunteered at Pennsylvania Hospital and with Emergency Aid of Pennsylvania.

"She probably would have been an event planner in another lifetime," her son said.

The Chadwicks were living at the Bellevue in 1976 when a then-mysterious ailment now known as Legionnaires' disease killed 29 and sickened 151 attending an American Legion convention there.

"They lost their entire business overnight," her son said. "No one would stay there." Mrs. Chadwick Bruder and her husband closed the hotel, then moved back to the Ben Franklin. They lived there until Chadwick died on Mother's Day 1979.

After her husband's death, Mrs. Chadwick Bruder moved to Hopkinson House. She had many gentleman callers but chose Herbert J. Bruder Jr., a retired executive who could cook, as her husband in 1993. He died in 1999 of a ruptured brain aneurysm. The two had lived in Berwyn.

In 2001, another son, Michael Chadwick, a prominent hotel executive in Chicago, died at age 48.

"She was sad after my brother died after his enormous rise, but she recovered from it," her son said.

Mrs. Chadwick Bruder suffered a stroke several years ago but maintained her "dignity, poise, and bearing right to the end," he said.

Besides her son, she is survived by daughters, Patricia Oberholzer, Kathy Kuehnle, and Eileene Sloan; eight grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren.

A visitation will be Thursday, Jan. 31, from 10 to 10:45 a.m. at Christ the King Roman Catholic Church, 200 Windsor Ave., Haddonfield. A Funeral Mass will follow at 11 a.m. Interment is in Calvary Cemetery, West Conshohocken.