Hannah Anderson, Transcript Section 14

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Hannah Anderson,
Transcript Section 14

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MARLA: And Old Bettles moved because of a flood or --

HANNAH: No. Back in the '50s, FAA was the big thing here. It was totally gone when I was out of here, when this was happening, but back in 19 -- the middle 1940s, war was going on still, or somewhere in there, this -- the FAA stations was all over the state, as you know.

MARLA: Right.

HANNAH: Yeah. They had FAA station just about every -- every village.

MARLA: Right.

HANNAH: Tanana, Galena, Kotzebue, everywhere. And Bettles was one of them, one of the FAA stations. First put it up down at Old Town, the Flight Service station was down there. That was -- would be in the '40s.

MARLA: Okay.

HANNAH: And I guess, of course, they had to put a runway in, if they have a Flight Service. And it's, I guess, like Fairbanks, Bettles, Umiat, Barrow, it was the line for what was going on up North.

MARLA: The White Alice?

HANNAH: Yeah, the White Alices and DEW Line and stuff. Yeah. Okay. And when they started to put the runway in down there, it wasn't suit -- it wasn't -- it just didn't work out. I don't really know why.

MARLA: Right.

HANNAH: So they scouted for a suitable runway area, and one of the Old-Timers, Big Charlie showed them as a scout, showing them where this would be --

MARLA: Perfect.

HANNAH: -- a perfect place for a runway. And that's why it started here.
So FAA was separated. The maintenance and runway -- runway maintenance and all of that, power and everything was here, and the Flight Service, the communicators and everybody, you know, that talked on the radio to airplanes and stuff --

MARLA: Right.

HANNAH: -- was down there at Old Town. So they were separated.

And in the late 1940s and early '50s, they moved the Flight Service station and housing and everything up here. Built some more housing, brought in some more families. And that was FAA.

And that's when Andy and I started the lodge at the same time. And it seemed like that everything was kind of like coming back after the war.

MARLA: Right. And did you -- did you have your children here in Bettles or did you --

HANNAH: I -- I -- my children were born in Bettles but I was living here. I mean, my children was born in Fairbanks.

MARLA: Okay.

HANNAH: But I was living here.

MARLA: So you flew into Fairbanks and --

HANNAH: Yeah.

MARLA: -- and until -- until they came?

HANNAH: Yeah.

MARLA: Okay.

HANNAH: And my whole nine months, prenatal, everything in Fairbanks. So we were with the airlines, so it was easy for Andy and I.

MARLA: I wonder at that time were people having children in the village or were they also flying --

HANNAH: They were being flown -- flown to Tanana.

MARLA: Okay.

HANNAH: A lot of them. Or and a lot of us into Fairbanks. A lot of the FAA families went to Fairbanks. Uh-hum. The McConnell twins was born in Fairbanks.