KAREN: So, you said before that there were no telephones.

AGNES: No, telephones except for one that was crank. I didn't know how to use that.

KAREN: And where was that one?

AGNES: That was down at Mallot's store.

KAREN: Was that the only store in town at the time?

AGNES: There was another one that was called Bellingham -- Bellingham Store. That was the cannery.

KAREN: If there wasn't a telephone, how did you communicate with the doctors?

AGNES: Letters or if it was something drastic, we'd have the person that knows how to run that phone. Then we'd talk to them.

I'm glad they don't have those kind of phones anymore. It would: ring, ring, ring (makes the sound). And they'd have it out on the porch so people could hear you talking as they were going by and that wasn't good.

KAREN: Yeah. I didn't ask you before. I was wondering how did you deal with privacy, confidentiality.

AGNES: Well, we'd wait 'til the person pass by and start talking (laughs). But they'd find out one way or another that so and so was getting shipped out or --

KAREN: Was there a problem writing letters? Because that takes time to go back and forth with the letters.

AGNES: Uh-hum (affirmative).

KAREN: Was that ever a problem?

AGNES: Yeah, it was. But I remember only one patient that called, asked me to come down and check her over. She had breast cancer. And that was the only letter that sticks out in my mind that I had to write. And they made arrangements for her to go down. And then she thanked me for getting her down there. She passed away long time ago.

KAREN: Did it ever happen that a letter didn't get there and back in time and a patient died before they could get help?

AGNES: Uh-hum (negative). There was never anything that critical.

KAREN: Uh-hum.

AGNES: I told her that somebody was watching from upstairs. Things would work out ok.