Mary Morris Seelaus, longtime social worker

It was 7:30 on a September morning in 1992, and in a rowhouse on Hicks Street, near 15th and South Streets, Mary Morris Seelaus was chanting.

It was a short prayer in Latin, repeated and repeated, the translation for which is, "Where there is charity and love, there is God."

There were four other women in the room: two Episcopalians, a Presbyterian, and the Roman Catholic nun who lived there.

Afterward, Mrs. Seelaus told an Inquirer reporter why she usually stopped off, on her way to her job as a Catholic social worker, to join in the chant:

"It's like a vitamin pill."

On Saturday, June 4, Mrs. Seelaus, 80, known as "Kathy," died at Penn Hospice at Rittenhouse in Center City after a stroke.

Over the years, she worked for several agencies in Delaware County, Philadelphia, and South Jersey.

That 1992 morning chanting was a function of Bainbridge House, a prayer group founded in 1986. It wasn't all prayer.

In 1991, the reporter wrote, the Bainbridge women "pitched in to create a neighborhood garden that won first prize in a citywide competition."

The garden, in an abandoned lot, was across the street from a crack house. "In the garden, the women of Bainbridge House read stories to neighborhood kids."

In 2003, the Philadelphia Daily News reported that Stanton School, at 17th and Christian Streets, "has something that no school in the city has - about 45 adult mentors who come to the school to work with students year-round. Most are from the Bainbridge House."

A son, Peter, said Mrs. Seelaus had mentored there for most of the last 20 years.

The May 2010 issue of Milestones, a publication of the Philadelphia Corp. for Aging, featured on its cover a photo of Mrs. Seelaus and some of her 14 children (and some of their children) at an Arden Theatre Company production of Peter Pan.

There are only 17 years between the oldest and the youngest of his siblings, her son said.

"We had a foster child as well," he said. "We always had people in the home."

Mrs. Seelaus lived in Drexel Hill and Lansdowne from 1953 to 2002 and, since 2006, in Center City.

She grew up in Havertown, graduated from the Academy of Notre Dame de Namur, and earned a bachelor's in English at Rosemont College in 1952.

After her children were grown, she earned a master's in social work in 1980 and a master's in law and social policy in 1983, both at Bryn Mawr College.

A daughter, Christina Hulslander, said Mrs. Seelaus was a social worker for Children and Youth Services of Delaware County until 1986, working at times as a group therapist with sexually abused victims and families.

From 1986 to 1989, she was a social worker and supervisor of protective services for Delaware County Services for the Aging.

In 1989 and 1990, Mrs. Seelaus was director of the Healthy Beginnings Project at Family Support Services Inc., coordinating early intervention with families of at-risk infants.

In 1991 and 1992, she was a bereavement counselor at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, and from 1992 to 1996, she coordinated grief work for Family Counseling Service in Camden.

From 1996 to 1997, she was a childhood-loss specialist in the Trenton office of Children's Home Society of New Jersey.

She was an adjunct teacher of a course titled Human Behavior in the Social Environment at Rutgers-Camden from 1995 to 1997.

Thereafter, son Peter said, much of her work life focused on Bainbridge House.

Besides son Peter and daughter Christina, she is survived by sons Paul, Tim, William, and Andrew; daughters Mary, Ann, Margaret, Rosemary, Monica Gilbert, Kathy Tinkler, and Joan Miller; 29 grandchildren; two step-grandchildren; and a great-grandson. Her husband of 35 years, Paul, died in 2008, and a son, Philip, died in 1988.

A viewing was set from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, June 23, at the Videon Funeral Home, 2001 Sproul Rd., Broomall. A visitation was set from 10 a.m. Friday, June 24, at Sacred Heart Church, 1739 Ferry Ave., Camden, before an 11 a.m. life celebration there.