Barbara Johnson, Part 1, Transcript Section 1

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Barbara Johnson, Part 1
Transcript Section 1

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KAREN: Today is May 27th, 2006, and this is Karen Brewster. And we're here with Barbara Johnson. And we tried moving the camera because of your glasses.

And we're here in Yakutat at the Blue Heron Inn, doing an interview for the Community Health Aide Project. And Barbara, thank you for agreeing to be interviewed. Appreciate it.

BARBARA: You're welcome.

KAREN: I wanted to get us started. Why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself. When you were born, where.

BARBARA: Well, my name is Barbara Johnson and I was born in Petersburg. And my grandmother brought me here to Yakutat when I was a year old because my mother died when I was six months old. So I was raised by my grandmother. And so I -- I'm originally from Yakutat.

KAREN: And when were you born?

BARBARA: January 12th, 1937.

KAREN: Okay. And then what kind of school did you go -- did you go to school in --

BARBARA: I went to Skagway to the Catholic Mission there. Hyacinth Mission, I went there for like five years. And then I went to Mount Edgecumbe High School.

I went for a while to Yakutat grade school for about a year, I think. And then when I was a little younger, I remember going there. But my last -- my last schooling was in Mount Edgecumbe High School.

KAREN: And what was your grandmother's name who raised you?

BARBARA: Her name was Maggie John, and she lived to be, like, 100 years old. We took care of her when -- when she -- during her last days on earth here.

And she was a midwife also, and what you would call a medicine woman, you know, because she used to take care of anybody to took sick or injured here, before anybody, nurse or doctors would come here. So she took care of them. Delivered babies.

And I went to Juneau and lived there for a little while. But from there, I went to Hood Bay Cannery and met my husband there, and went to Angoon.

KAREN: Where is Hood Bay Cannery?

BARBARA: It's right -- it's close to Angoon. It's the cannery that the Angoon people owned.

KAREN: Oh.

BARBARA: And they used to go there in the summers, you know, and live over there. And then come back to Angoon in the fall time. But I lived there for, like, 25 years.

KAREN: So your husband was from Angoon?

BARBARA: Yeah. And my -- my children -- my children were raised in Angoon.