At the same time, she prided herself on her news-gathering ability, her dedication to the job and her remarkable accuracy.
Mrs. Seltzer attended parties, receptions and dinners at a rate of about 500 a year, mostly in the Philadelphia area, but also in Newport, R.I., and Saratoga, N.Y. She also covered the "special" events - for example, Tricia Nixon's wedding in the Rose Garden at the White House in 1971 and the funeral of Princess Grace of Monaco in 1982.
"If Gracie were alive, she'd just be in tears," said Lizanne K. LeVine, sister of the late Princess Grace and John B. Kelly Jr. "Ruth was one of the
Kellys' personal favorite friends."
It was not uncommon for her to cover as many as five affairs in one day: steeplechase races in Maryland, a wedding on the Main Line, a party in Gladwyne, a dinner in Chestnut Hill and a ball in Center City.
Until becoming ill in early April, Mrs. Seltzer wrote her column three times a week. She managed to dictate two columns from home last month, and last week she was gathering information from her hospital bed for two more columns when she decided she could not continue. She had planned to announce her retirement in next Sunday's Inquirer.
"We at The Inquirer will miss her greatly," said Eugene L. Roberts Jr., the executive editor. "She was one of a kind. It is hard to imagine a more diligent reporter. She seemed eternally to be either going to or coming from a story. She cared."
A stickler for accuracy, Mrs. Seltzer frequently interrupted the flow of words as she wrote her column to check the spelling of a name or the exact wording of a title. She would phone the newspaper library or dash over to the metal file cabinet opposite her desk to do so, and it didn't matter if she had made a similar check only a week earlier. If she had the slightest doubt, she checked again.
