KAREN: You had a nurse training, so you already knew a little bit of something before?

JESSIE: A little bit. It is a lot different then -- working in the hospital (as a nurse) is a lot different than being out in the field working as a health aide. 

KAREN: How so?

JESSIE: In the hospital, you have your orders there.  You get in there and your orders are there on what you have to do, and you do them.  In the field as a health aide, you have a lot of decisions you have to make on your own.  I think working in the hospital is better. 

The health aides are under a doctor's supervision, too, but at a different location than you are.  You have to call them on the phone. Back then when I started, we used to call them on a radio.  It wasn't that confidential on a radio. 

KAREN: Was the radio in the clinic?

JESSIE: At a store in Angoon.

KAREN: Was there a clinic at the time?

JESSIE: There was no clinic when I started.  But the school, I believe, let us use a small space in their building for a clinic.  I don't know what happened, but we had to move out of there.  So, we were out on our own.  Barbara (Johnson) and I said, well, we will refuse to work out of our home, which is hard to do because you don't get any rest.  And, we kind of went on a strike until they get us building for a clinic.

KAREN: Did it work?

JESSIE: Yes, we got a building. It was one of the THA (Tlingit-Haida Association) houses. It was a house that they transformed it into a clinic for us.  And, we worked out of that for a few years before the city had one built in Angoon.  And, SEARHC (Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium) was -- no it was under the health council.  Paula Pancho used to come out to -- they had some grants. They'd send money to upkeep the clinic.  But, it was being leased from the city of Angoon, I believe.

KAREN: Was that mid-seventies, late eighties?

JESSIE: Eighties… I believe that's what the sign said, there was one in front of the clinic.

KAREN: Is that the clinic they still use?

JESSIE: No, more modern now. We have a new clinic, that they just moved into it. What year was that? Just about two or three years ago. Not too long after I retired anyway.

KAREN: When did you retire again?

JESSIE: January 7 --

KAREN: What year?

JESSIE: Was it 2003?

KAREN: Should I check the article.  It's in that newsletter.

JESSIE: Anyway, I had been working for thirty-five years.

KAREN: That's a long time, you must of liked the job?

JESSIE: I guess so.  It is kind of hard to leave. You have to have a love for taking care of people.  Maybe a feeling of being needed.  A stick-to-it-ness.  But, there were many times when I felt like I wouldn't be able to make it.

But, I talked myself back into it.  It is a hard job.  I don't think any amount of money would make up for some of the things they have to go through on that job.