Patricia Walsh, involved in charities and art collecting

Patricia Stewart Walsh's life appeared to be on the same track as other Chestnut Hill debutantes': private schools, good marriage, charity events, and lots of tennis. But then she met Richard Walsh, a future spy, and her life took a turn for the adventurous.

Mrs. Walsh, 88, of Lafayette Hill, died Thursday, April 7, at her home, four years after suffering a stroke.

She spent most of her married life in Europe, where her husband worked for the CIA.

A graduate of Springside Chestnut Hill Academy, she was dating Walsh's younger brother when she caught the eye of her future husband. They married in 1951 and moved to West Germany, where Walsh served in the Army. He then headed the Romanian desk for the CIA.

"They were digging tunnels under Berlin," said her daughter, Valentine Walsh Child. "We were spying on the Russians and they were spying on us. This was all Cold War stuff."

In 1964, Richard Walsh joined the International Committee for European Migration, a refugee organization, and the family moved to Geneva, Switzerland, where they lived for 25 years. After Mrs. Walsh's mother died, she and her husband returned to Chestnut Hill in 1985, and spent summers in their home on Nantucket.

Her mother was "ever ready to embrace new languages and cities, and to make an exciting and happy home wherever the family landed," said Child. "She was a bright light in all the communities in which she lived."

Mrs. Walsh was 64 when her husband died. She flung herself into charitable and community endeavors, and art collecting. She supported a nursery school in Mount Airy and East Falls, and a sailing program for children in Nantucket, among other activities.

"She's always been very generous," said her daughter. "The extraordinary thing about my mother is, she did so many things in Philadelphia, but she did them quietly. She worked in a battered woman's refuge. I never knew."

Child said her mother was an enthusiastic hostess who threw lavish parties, and a sportswoman who rode horses as a child, and skied and played tennis into her 70s, when she switched to golf.

Mrs. Walsh was also passionate about the arts, perhaps because she had lived next to two noted Philadelphia artists, Violet Oakley and Edith Emerson. She knew Arthur B. Carles, the American modernist who studied and taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and painters in his circle including Jessie Drew-Bear, Jane Piper, Quita Brodhead, and Jean Knox Chambers.

A friend of Mrs. Walsh's, William Valerio, director of the Woodmere Art Museum in Chestnut Hill, said, "Patsy was not only a visionary collector with a keen eye for important works, but she was also a respected and inspirational voice in the family of the arts in Philadelphia."

The stroke left Mrs. Walsh partially paralyzed. She had trouble speaking, but maintained her sense of humor and kindness, according to her daughter. Her strength "was an inspiration," she said.

In addition to her daughter, she is survived by a son, Richard; three grandchildren; and a longtime companion, Marylin Correia.

Services were Monday, April 18, at St. Thomas' Church, Whitemarsh.

Contributions may be made to any charity that helps poor and disadvantaged children.

kboccella@phillynews.com

610-313-8232 @Kathy_Boccella