This interview was conducted with Hazel Murray at her home on Columbia Street in Hudson, where she has lived for almost 60 years. In the interview she talks about how she came to Hudson as a single woman from Charleston, South Carolina in her late 30s and got a job teaching cooking at the New York Training School for Girls where she worked for 37 years. She discusses meeting her husband there, and an injury that forced her to leave the job and fight the state to get disability benefits. She describes Hudson as a quiet town, and talks about her family, her pets and the homes she and her husband owned as landlords. She describes her busy catering business, Hazel’s Kitchen, providing meals for street fairs, weddings and other events, and her time singing with the choir and helping in the kitchen of Shiloh Baptist Church, where she has been a member of the congregation since her arrival in Hudson. She also comments on how her life in Hudson is different now that many of her friends have died, she doesn’t know most of her neighbors, and she is no longer able to work.
