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Library

Lisa Dolan

June 28, 2025

|

Hudson, NY

Song

Recorded by

Alex Barrows

This interview is available in-person only. Please get in touch if you would like to listen.
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Summary:

This interview with retired teacher and lifelong Hudson resident Lisa Dolan—her second for The Community Library of Voice and Sound, ten years after her first—covers her deep roots in Hudson and the importance of community across generations. Lisa reflects on her favorite places in Hudson, her pride in raising a multigenerational family under one roof, and her lifelong commitment to literacy, a “thread” connecting her decades as a teacher, consultant, and founder of the Hudson Book Festival.

She discusses the challenges facing Hudson’s youth, including the effects of poverty, housing costs, and the COVID-19 pandemic, and emphasizes the need for collaboration among local organizations rather than competition. Lisa also speaks about her life after retiring and the loss of her husband in 2020, which led her to focus on grief work and personal growth. She has trained as a life and grief coach, co-facilitates a local grief group that offers communal rituals and support, and now finds meaning in helping others through loss. She concludes by expressing gratitude for her life in Hudson, surrounded by family, neighbors, and a caring community.

This interview would be of interest to those curious about education, literacy, youth development and services; intergenerational households, community and neighborly care inHudson; raising children and grandchildren in Hudson, personal growth and loss; and the creation of grief communities in small towns.

Themes:
No items found.
Interviewer Bio:
Alex Barrows
Additional Info:
Interview language(s):
English
,
Audio quality:
medium

Audio Quality Scale

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Medium - There is background noise, but the narrator is audible.

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Permissions: 

This interview is hereby made available for research purposes only. For additional uses (radio and other media, music, internet), please click here to inquire about permissions.

Part of this interview may be played in a radio broadcast or podcast.

Oral history is an iterative process. In keeping with oral history values of anti-fixity, interviewees will have an opportunity to add, annotate and reflect upon their lives and interviews in perpetuity. Talking back to the archive is a form of “shared authority.”

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