Biographical Information
Carolyn Murray was born in North Sydney, Cape
Breton, the oldest of four sisters. (She won’t say when that was, but there
is a movie with her birth year in the title.) Her mother says she could
sing before she could talk. In the school questionnaire she would fill out
every fall, she always put “Singer” on the “Career Choice” category. Her
mother saved the money from her meager grocery budget to pay for private
piano and voice lessons, never dreaming that one day her daughter would make
her living with her music.
Carolyn began her teaching career in 1960 in the elementary classroom, but in the early 70’s was recruited by the Music Department of what was then School District 19, now District 6. She taught music at Macdonald Consolidated School on the Kingston Peninsula until 1992, when she moved to St. Stephen, New Brunswick, for three years. Upon moving back to the Peninsula in 1995, she taught at Belleisle Elementary School in Springfield until her retirement in December, 1999.
Carolyn can’t remember when she started writing stories, poems, and songs. When her choirs began performing her compositions, friends encouraged her to record them, but not until her Rector, the Rev. Eric Phinney of St. James the Less Anglican Church in Rothesay, New Brunswick, offered to help with the project was she able to do the recording. She chose ten songs, all with a Peninsula theme, for her CD.
The Kingston Peninsula has been home to the Murray family since 1970. Charles, Shannon (Creary) and Stephanie (Mainville), and Matthew Migliardi, her nephew, all attended Macdonald Consolidated. Carolyn and her husband Duke have seven grandchildren, Lydia, Stephen, Ava Carolyn and Daniel Mainville, and Sam, Emily and Aidan Creary.
Carolyn’s hobbies include traveling, (since her retirement she’s been overseas three times, to Great Britain, Italy and Greece, and, last spring, to Paris), needlework, especially regional embroidery, Bridge, and quilting. She’s on the Ministry Leadership Team at her church, and has been on a mission trip to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. She’s a terrific cook and a mean 45’s player. Her grandmother lived to be one hundred and six and a half years old and she hopes to do the same!