Lorelai Bridges
Lorelai Tallulah Bridges (a.k.a. The Warden) was a schoolteacher in a one-room
schoolhouse in Richmondtown. The children called her Miss Lorelai to her face
and The Warden behind her back.
Lorelai was born on April 24, 1888 in St. Vincent's Hospital in New Brighton.
In 1904, she became the lover of a mysterious Italian immigrant (swarthy but
extremely good-looking and exotic at the same time). She met him at the Dark
Horse Tavern in New Dorp after climbing out the window of the family's home
in Port Richmond and riding horseback with her girlfriend for night of fun.
They partied with Starlight Kitty and Moonlight Nell. Good fun was had by
all but of course Lorelai eventually got herself pregnant. Her man worked
in a shipping yard on Richmond Terrace. She would see him regularly for three
months until he disappeared just as mysteriously as he had arrived.
In December of 1904, Lorelai gave birth to a little girl while living with
her aunt Beulah Jean down in Boone, North Carolina. Her parents insisted she
go away while she was expecting to save the family from the shame of her pregnancy.
She agreed but insisted that a Staten Island family adopt the baby. Lorelai's
father, a merchant, made arrangements with one of his customers, the prominent
Daniel Seguine of Prince's Bay to adopt the baby girl for his wife who is
unable to give him children. His wife, Antoinette, was overjoyed to embrace
the beautiful baby girl.
Lorelai, over the years, would travel to Tottenville to see the Seguine family
strolling down Main Street after church with the beautiful child she had been
forced to give up.
Lorelai decided to become a teacher at the Richmondtown School in the old
Voorleezer House so that she could be near the children she longed for. She
was especially hard on the girls because she didn't want them to make the
same mistakes she had. He strictness won her the name "The Warden"
by the girls she so closely watched and protected.
Lorelai died in the hospital she was born in of tuberculosis in 1926 at the
age of 38. She is buried in Richmondtown Cemetery where the children she loved
and devoted her life to bring flowers to her grave. The inscription on her
tombstone reads "Here lies Lorelai Tallulah Bridges/ daughter of Cargo
and Cora Bridges/ who died on this day/ the day of her birth/April 24, 1926/
a victim of tuberculosis at the age of 38/ 'She did more than teach. She inspired.'/
Rest in Peace.