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In memory of

Dorothy Mary Bridges

Kings Park, NY, USA

December 27, 1925 - July 27, 2020

Dec 27, 1925 - Jul 27, 2020

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Dorothy M Bridges née Awgul (December 27, 1925-July 27 2020)
My maternal grandmother died at 1:30am on Monday. I’ve been reflecting about her 94 years of life. From family records and conversations I’ve had with her, here’s what I know about this kind and loving lady:
Dorothy’s father, John Awgul, came to New York from Vilnius, Lithuania (then Wilma, Germany) in 1914 at age 14. They arrived on the ship Czar in steerage class. The Ellis Island registry lists their ethnicity as Polish. Dorothy’s grandfather, Vicenky (Vincent) Awgul was 43 when he immigrated, an age I am turning in a few days. Dorothy’s mother Mary Jagadowski also arrived in New York at age 6 from Frytzak, Poland in 1913. Both of my great-grandparents were fleeing the fallout of World War I. My great-great-grandfather, John Randolph Jagadowski, was 30 at the time of his immigration and had served in the Austrian army. If they had arrived less than a decade later, the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 would have likely prevented them from immigrating. That bill was passed in the House without a recorded vote and passed in the Senate 90-2-4 and signed into law by Warren Harding. Her father, John Awgul, became a motorman on the Coney Island train line. I’ve been living next to a Q line station in Manhattan for a few years and I’ve taken it all the way to Coney Island with my kids.
Her early childhood revolved around visits to her grandparents’ (Jagadowski) at 1380 E 2nd St in Brooklyn. Attached is a photo of what it looks like today. On Christmas Day, 1980, at the age of 55, she recalled that “it was kept spotlessly clean and always smelled of the lovely bread my Grandma baked” and “we younger ones always like to play under Grandma’s wooden table. It was wonderful there especially when someone parked their gum underneath and we would grab it for themselves.” Wow! She recalled many Christmases in that place and it’s hard to imagine but in her 1980 journal she listed 9 relatives other than her own family who joined them there. In her journal she said “As a child I remember mostly the holidays being cold and snowy…most of all I remember the joyfulness of the season and anticipation. I am very thankful for having had these wonderful memories to look back on and for the love and closeness of our family. Although poor in money, we had the greatest treasure—love.”
By 1945, during WW II, Dorothy had already begun working at an insurance company, Pendleton & Pendleton, as a clerk. She later worked at Norden Bombsight Co. until D Day. After that she worked at E.F. Hutton, a broker that later merged into Citigroup. I remember asking her about those days and she shared stories about her high-pressure job in Manhattan. She occasionally made mistakes using the complex switchboard and felt the wrath of the partners of the firm. These stories were formative for me and I’ve always tried to treat junior employees with the utmost care and respect.
A former colleague at Pendleton & Pendleton invited her on a double date with William Prestin, who she married April 13, 1947. She described the first date as “dinner and a show” and afterward went dancing in Manhattan. I never figured out what Broadway show she saw on that first date. Was it Pirates of Penzance? Or The Girl from Nantucket? She recalls in her journal that “he was very charming and treated me like a lady which was very pleasant.” She was at first confused because she though he said he was a “bookie”, but it turned out he was a bookkeeper. He later went on to start his own accounting firm in Long Island.
She went on to have 5 children who survive her. Dorothy, Diane, Dale, William (Bill) and Mary. She is also survived by her younger brother Greg and sister Annette. In her journal she said that it was always her ambition to make a wonderful home for her children. She certainly did that and continued to care for her many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I recall receiving birthday cards with $5 or $10, knowing that she by that time was living on a fixed income in Florida. Every time our family visited her, she was effusive with her hospitality and was always taking us on Floridian adventures: cold springs you could dive to the bottom of, alligator farms and fishing adventures.
She also had ambitions to learn music, and at age 30, after having 5 children, started learning the piano, organ (she played in her church for many years), flute and harmonica. She enjoyed taking up other instruments too. She played music first for herself, and then for others. This made an impression on me and I’ve always been my own audience for most of my music-making.
After her husband William Prestin (my maternal grandfather) died, she remarried and moved to Edgewater, Florida, where she primarily resided until her death. She remarried in 1966 and ended up spending more than half of her life in Florida. She loved the warm weather, but also was (in my memory) sensitive to slight changes in temperature and humidity. In her journal she recalls the ice and snow of the Northeast and it seemed to loom larger in her memory with age. I remember her showing us the manatees that swam in the canal next to her house. She became a big booster of the Florida lifestyle and always kept a neat garden, kept various boats and seemed to always have a deep tan (recall her Polish heritage!) She somehow held on to a lovely Brooklyn accent even though New York was so distant. I remember a few times she drove by herself from Florida to Pennsylvania and New York to visit her Northeast family—once she drove through without stopping for the night.
Over the years I’ve stayed in touch with her and she aged gracefully from when I first knew her in her 60s to when she needed more care in her 90s. In her final days she played the harmonica (to my kids’ amusement), listened to Polish polka music (Lawrence Welk?), and sang hymns with us when we visited.
Dorothy was a passionate, born again Christian who had a quiet piety that centered in her lifelong relationship with Christ. In trying to help my kids understand how old 94 is exactly, I told them that it’s just about 21 of her lifetimes end-to-end that get us from 2020 back to the time of Christ. Her spiritual life started in the Our Lady of Czestochowa & St. Casimir Church at 183 25th St in Brooklyn. She was baptized in the church and recalled many feast day celebrations where there was polka music and dancing. Much of the social and dating scene in the Brooklyn Polish community was centered here. The church still holds 3 out of its 4 services in Polish. As an adult she converted to Protestant Christianity after discussions with her father-in-law (Prestin) and then later a work friend. She recalled in her journal that there were several rituals her family partook in (like a family Eucharist at Christmas) that she didn’t understand as a young girl but understood in adulthood. Her relationship with Jesus was a sweet one and she loved singing and playing Christian hymns. In her journal she wrote “I believe I have fulfilled all my dreams because I never wanted to be anything else than what I was. And I thank God that in my simple life I was born into a good family and ‘born again’ into God’s family. What more can we ask of life than this.”
In her 1980 journal she left the words to this song and this prayer:

“Thank you Lord for saving my soul,
Thank you Lord for making me whole,
Thank you Lord for giving to me,
Thy great salvation so rich and free”

Prayer for our Family
“Dear Father, How I thank you and praise you for your lovely Son Jesus. Savior, I pray that in the many years left to us you would save each and every one of us, even those not here yet as our family extends and grows. I pray that not only would we be saved but that we would all seek to serve you faithfully each and every day. Keep us in Thy great Love close to Thee until we meet again at your throne. I pray these things in the name of the precious Lord Jesus. Amen”

-written in loving memory by grandson Andrew Peters

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