Adeline Wachman, 98, teacher, philanthropist, and widow of college president

Adeline Wachman, 98, formerly of Chestnut Hill, an educator and philanthropist, died Tuesday, March 14, of congestive heart failure at the Hill at Whitemarsh, a senior facility in Lafayette Hill where she had lived for the last eight years.

Mrs. Wachman was the widow of Marvin Wachman, an American history professor who became president of Lincoln University in 1961 and of Temple University in 1973.

The Wachmans led an extraordinary life. Shortly after they were married in 1942, he went overseas to fight in World War II, while she worked as a secretary at a war plant in Chicago that made radio equipment for pilots.

In 1946, after returning stateside, Wachman was a college professor for 13 years at Colgate University in Upstate New York, and Mrs. Wachman taught English and drama to students at Hamilton High School. While rearing two daughters, she found time to act in Colgate Theater productions and local Gilbert and Sullivan shows.

In 1959, the couple returned to Europe when Wachman accepted a job as director of the Salzburg Seminar, an institute in Austria devoted to training European leaders.

After serving at the institute for two years, Wachman became the first president of the historic Lincoln University in southern Chester County, and the family lived on campus. Mrs. Wachman was active in the League of Women Voters and became an advocate for civil rights and social reform.

During their years at Lincoln, the Wachmans traveled to Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa at the request of the State Department. Mrs. Wachman took up photography, documenting conditions across the African continent.

When the couple moved to Temple in 1969 -- he was a vice president and became president four years later -- Mrs. Wachman socialized and traveled to the satellite campuses that the university was establishing around the world.

Born in Decatur, Mich., in 1918, Mrs. Wachman grew up in Aberdeen, S.D., and then Urbana, Ill. Her father died in a train accident when she was 4. She attended Webster Township High School in Urbana and graduated in 1940 from the University of Illinois as a theater major. There she met Wachman, who was a tennis champion and Ph.D. candidate in history.

After Wachman retired from Temple in 1983, Mrs. Wachman remained active in social circles for the next 25 years. "She had a reputation for putting people at ease," said her daughter Lynn Alison Wachman.

A prudent investor, she saved enough for the couple to fund an endowed chair at Temple, a theater scholarship through the Philadelphia Foundation, and other student scholarships at Temple. She gave annually to the Kennett Square Library, the ACLU, and Planned Parenthood.

"Those in need were always on her mind, and she was trying to provide for them," her daughter said.

Wachman died in 2007. During the next decade, Mrs. Wachman hiked along the Wissahickon Creek, swam, played tennis, rode SEPTA to Philadelphia to attend orchestra concerts, and grew lettuce and carrots in a garden at her senior community.

Besides her daughter, she is survived by another daughter, Katie Marie Wachman, and nieces and nephews.

A celebration of her life will be private.