Elaine Brody

by Lynne Ober

If you want to build a building, Elaine Brody is the person to ask to help. She loves digging through the details from beginning to end.

Elaine and her veterinarian husband, Buzz, have lived in Hudson for twenty-eight years. Parents of four daughters, including a set of twins, they have long been involved in Hudson.

“The first building project I ever worked on was with Lenny Smith,” reminisces Elaine. “We worked on the Alvirne High School farm house the year before Ray Marcotte was hired as farm manager. We gutted the house and rebuilt it from the inside out.” From that time until today, Elaine’s been involved in a variety of building projects.

“I worked with the School District Facilities Committee for a number of years and was familiar with the schools that we had.” When the Board decided that a new school was needed, they called on Elaine to help. She worked on the committee that did the specifications for the new elementary school. “Of course that school failed at the ballot,” Elaine recalled.

But that failure didn’t stop her, she came back and worked with the next School Board on the project that ultimately became Hills Garrison School. “I was there from start to finish. So was Bernie Manor. He’s a good guy to have around if you want to build something.”

During the time that she was working on Hills, she was co-chairman for the building project at Temple Beth Abraham. “I was very busy,” she laughed.

Elaine and Buzz have always supported town events. “When my girls started school, I joined HOPE (Hudson Organization of Parents and Educators). I didn’t know how many years I was going to be involved when I started that. They told me it would be one meeting a month and I foolishly believed that,” she laughed.

Elaine ran the magazine drive at Hudson Memorial School for a number of years. That magazine drive continues today and is one of the largest PTO fund-raisers in Hudson School District.

“I was also a reading assistant at Dr. H.O. Smith School,” Elaine said. “I worked with second graders for a number of years.”

She and Buzz have sponsored the Alvirne High School Spring Concert for a number of years. “Buzz’s father was a music teacher. When my kids were at Alvirne, we used to sponsor the after camp band Bar-be-que at our house.”

When she wasn’t volunteering in the school district, she ran the business end of the two veterinary clinics that she and her husband owned and operated.

With their girls out of school, Elaine and Buzz decided to sell the veterinary clinics. “Buzz still does relief work for practices that are short-handed or where the vet needs to be out of town, but his real love is being in his wood and metal shop,” Elaine stated.

They also love to travel, which is good because one of their daughters has been living in Israel for ten years. “She’s expecting her second child in February so we’ll go back over there for that,” Elaine stated. “I decided that I needed to learn Hebrew so that I could talk to my grandchildren so I’m taking an immersion conversational Hebrew class. I called my daughter and said in Hebrew ‘Hi Kate, it’s Mom’. She sounded a little hesitant so I said the only other sentence that I knew – ‘I’m taking a Hebrew class at the temple’.”

Over the years Elaine has been very active in temple activities. She served as president and has always been active in Hadassak Women’s Organization. “I just like organization stuff,” she said.

Elaine sang in a chorus for three years and continues to sing at the synagogue.

But she’s not done building. Elaine and Jane Bowles are Co-Chairman of the Library Building Project. So far Elaine has met with several community groups, including the Selectmen and School Board. At Harvest Fest, she talked to residents and showed a conceptual drawing of what a new library could look like. “I’ve made appointments to talk to the Lions, the Grange and several PTO groups,” she said. “We want to get the community involved. After all, a library is for everyone.”