Jill Salerno

The interview with Jill Salerno was held at Solaris on Warren Street in Hudson, NY on Sunday afternoon, January 28th, 2024. Jill is a white woman who was a child growing upon Long Island during the Second World War, where her family, among other things, raised chickens for their meat and eggs. After going to college in New Hampshire, where she eventually shunned her sorority, Jill lived for two years in France. Since she was too young to find work with the United States Army at that time, she moved back to New York City, eventually held a job with the US Army Special Services on Staten Island before moving to Columbia County to become an elementary school teacher. Jill describes beginning volunteer work as a child with the Girl Scouts of American, later with blood drives and other civic activities, and later still as a board member for Columbia Memorial Hospital and Columbia-Green Community College among other volunteer commitments. She discusses meeting and marrying her first husband, who died of cancer after they adopted and raised two children. Jill described meeting Alan Skerrett, who was well known inHudson and beyond. They were married until Alan’s death in 2023. Jill describes her most important achievement as co-founding and helping run Second Show for many years. Second Show is a community thrift store and a notable institution of Hudson that also raises money for Columbia Memorial Hospital through the sales of its wares. This interview would be interesting to anyone interested in Second Show particularly and in the life history of an older community member with a long-standing orientation toward volunteer work and civic activity.

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