KAREN: Do you remember when you first got hired as a health aide and got paid?

AGNES: That was in the‘70s. That was a $187 a month. Is that all? I think we were supposed to get back pay but we never saw it. And that was a little upsetting. Yep. Didn't get paid very much, for all that work. But --

KAREN: And that was for SEARHC at that point? Is that who you worked for?

AGNES: No, SEARHC didn't come until later. This was just Mt. Edgecumbe. I think they called it CHAP. Health training or health aides.

KAREN: Uh-hum. And before that program when you were just -- people just came to you for help, did they come to your house or was there a clinic?

AGNES: Uh-hum (affirmative). They came to our house. Or if they couldn't, we'd have to go to their house, then go to the clinic and get the medicines if we had it. But back in '71, it was easier. We had telephones then. It was much easier and we called collect to the hospital --

KAREN: Oh, in Sitka?

AGNES: -- and then they connect you to the doctor.

KAREN: So, before there were telephones in Yakutat and somebody had an emergency how did they let you know they needed your help?

AGNES: Somebody would come down in their car and let us know. There weren't too many cars then. That was scary. But things always worked out. We didn't have stretchers then.

I remember one patient we had, he was a man in his 50s or 60s. No stretcher and he was having ulcer problems and he couldn't walk, so I had to get two oars and get a blanket and make a stretcher.

KAREN: Wow.

AGNES: And then two guys had taken -- put him in the back of a truck. Had to have a canopy in case it was raining or snowing.

KAREN: So, that was your ambulance?

AGNES: Uh-hum (affirmative). Yeah. Poor guy. He was suffering so much from his ulcers. I think he died from stomach cancer.