Crossing Guards Bid Farewell To One Of Their Own

Celeste ​“CeCe” Staten Gilchrist died in the early-morning hours of Sept. 27 after being struck by a hit-and-run driver as she crossed Whalley Avenue between Davis Street and Anthony Street. Police believe the 68-year-old school crossing guard was looking for her dog Harlem, a small lhasa apso mix.

Roughly 30 family, friends, and fellow crossing guards, masked and socially distanced, attended a funeral service at Beaverdale Memorial Cemetery on Pine Rock Avenue.

Mayor Justin Elicker told the group he’d been feeling the brunt of the dreary day, and the times, until hearing Stephanie Townsend’s soul-stirring rendition of the worship song ​“Way Maker” resound through the cemetery. Her singing inspired him to ​“look for small glimmers of light,” he said. ​“From the stories I’ve heard, CeCe was one of those glimmers of light.”

Elicker recognized the essential role of the city’s crossing guards who stood arrayed in yellow fluorescent vests across the leaf-strewn lawn. ​“You are on the front lines, you are taking care of our most vulnerable, you are protecting our young children, and how many times have I heard, ​‘Don’t take away my crossing guard, Mayor Elicker?’”

Gilchrist had worked most recently at King Robinson Inter-District Magnet School and Lincoln-Bassett Community School. The mayor said at the Thursday funeral gathering that she did more than just care for young school children. In donating to domestic violence shelters, helping the homeless, and caring for dogs, ​“she followed that passion for protecting the most vulnerable in her own personal life,” he said.

Gilchrist’s friend Evangeline Lannette Price said Gilchrist had a ​“giving spirit” from a young age. She recalled Gilchrist throwing her a surprise sweet 16 birthday party.

“She invited everybody in our school,” she said. ​“I didn’t know all these people, but she did. She had the ability to draw people in, even at that age. She just said, ​‘Boom, here it is.’ She had everything, music, food; don’t ask me how. I don’t know if she saved her allowance or what she did, but she gave it to me.”

Delivering the eulogy, Rev. Shelly Emery Holness, associate pastor of Christian Tabernacle Baptist Church in Hamden, said, ​“CeCe was a person who loved very big. She loved her son Tywan, and she loved her grandchildren, and she loved her community and co-workers.”

Gilchrist, Holness said, ​“was able to protect and care for the schoolchildren as they went back and forth, 20 years. She stood in the cold, she stood in the rain, she stood faithful, for 20 years.”

Jeannette Pizarro, the city’s chief crossing guard supervisor, recognized the impact of Gilchrist on countless children and families and her perfect attendance over 20 years of service.

“No matter what CeCe was going through, I would see her out at the corner, crossing her kids, and she would always say, ​‘Oh, look at your smile, God bless you, God loves you.’”

After the service, school crossing guard Latrina Outlaw, while remembering Gilchrist as a ​“beautiful person,” rued the dangerous high-speed thoroughfare that is Whalley Avenue. (At an event to mark the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims on the New Haven Green on Sunday, Gilchrist’s was among the names read aloud as one of the eleven pedestrians who died in car crashes on New Haven streets within the past year.) 

“This shouldn’t have happened,” Outlaw said. ​“We have to stop this from happening.”

Mignone Henderson, standing nearby, nodded. She said she convinced Gilchrist to consider becoming a crossing guard, and Gilchrist never looked back.

“It was just mad love with CeCe,” she said, as the wind kicked up and the leaves swirled. ​“She loved those school kids. She loved her family. She loved her dog. She died trying to save the life of her dog.”