She never became a full-time teacher, but she did assist the young blind girls in their sewing classes where she was considered a "patient but demanding instructor."[50] In 1872, several cottages (each under a matron) for the blind girls were added to the Perkins campus, and Bridgman was moved from the larger house of the Institution into one of them. Bridgman, always eager for someone to communicate with in sign language, befriended Anne Sullivan when they shared a cottage in the early 1880s.[51] The death of Howe in 1876 was a great grief to her; but before he died he had made arrangements ensuring her financial security at the school for the rest of her life. In 1887 her jubilee was celebrated there, but in 1889 she was taken ill, and she died on May 24.