The Stories We Tell
By David Wright
Town Historian
A Woman of Substance
If you’re like many Stratfordites, you’ve heard that a piece of P.T. Barnum’s Bridgeport home, Waldemere, had been relocated to Pauline Street, in Lordship, at some time in the distant past. The distant past appears to have been 1899 when Mr. Spargo, from Bridgeport, used a barge to transport the library of Waldemere to Lordship. After its relocation, the former Waldemere became known as Spargo’s cottage.
You may still view the Barnum Library in Lordship by walking the beach between the Sea Wall and Russian Beach. It’s still a beautiful structure.
Many years later, c 1940, Ella Fleck moved with her husband to 1 Pauline Street. By the time the Flecks relocated to Lordship, Ella was already a legend. Mrs. Fleck was a local leader in the Suffrage movement in the early 1900s. She founded the Minute Women, a group of women who raised nearly $40,000 to help wounded members of the armed forces during World War I. Ella brought Girl Scouting to Bridgeport while living there.
Ella was known in Bridgeport as “Bridgeport’s Busiest Woman”. Ella’s activities ranged from organizing the Juvenile Court system in Connecticut to founding the first Girl Scout Chapter in Connecticut. She developed the first Bridgeport Day Nursery, and the Bridgeport Visiting Nurse Association. She was state President of the National League of American Pen Women, a charter member of the Bridgeport Art League, a member of the Merritt Parkway Committee, represented the State of Connecticut on the 1939 World’s Fair Committee, and for 25 years she was President of the Bridgeport Community Forum.
In her “spare time”, Ella was active in supporting the handicapped at the Southbury Training School. She was active in the Stratford Republican Women’s Association, and she created a Stratford scholarship fund to aid female graduates in Stratford’s high schools.
Mrs. Fleck passed away in her beloved home on Pauline Street, Lordship, February 19, 1972.
The Bridgeport Telegram
February 21, 1972
Mrs. Ella Fleck Dies; Noted Woman Leader
Mrs. Ella Gray Fleck, 96, a familiar figure in Bridgeport, who led an illustrious and colorful life with her involvement in countless political, Women’s Suffrage and civic causes, as well as her activities during World War I, died Saturday in her home, 1 Pauline Street, Lordship, Stratford.
…Her most notable act during the War was rounding up of 5,000 reported “slackers and draft dodgers” in the local armory to check out their reasons for not serving.
…Nearly as well-known as she, were the two homes she lived in during her illustrious career in this locality. The first, located on Lafayette Street, became the Hitching Post Inn, a restaurant torn down several years ago. Her home in Stratford was once the home of the late P. T. Barnum and contained many Barnum memorabilia as well as treasures from her world travels.
