ROSE:  Well, anyway, we went -- we went on and on like that.  They -- from Lower Yukon and from the Koyukuk River, Upper Yukon, you know, we're mixed up.  Then -- then pretty soon we went to -- they sent us to Anchorage and we're learning Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, Phase 4, maybe that's when we got into the medicine. 

MARLA:  And is that all in one training session or was that multiple training sessions? 

ROSE:  No.  Different times. 

MARLA:  Okay. 

ROSE:  We come home and then later on sometimes we go back again to keep -- keep climbing up like.  And -- and then we got paid for being health aide.  Very small pay.  But look like all of us, we didn't care.  We didn't -- we didn't care. 

The first check maybe that I received was -- I think it was $185 for one whole month.  That's money.  I remember that. 

I went straight to the store and my son was in school at Copper -- Copper Valley.  And I saw nice pants and nice -- nice clothes over there in the store. 
But I got this check, so right away I went over and I bought clothes.  They had nice school clothes.  And with my first check, I remember I sent him clothes and the rest of the money I bought food. 

So it was pretty exciting for -- for all of us.  And our own self, we don't have nothing.  Or me anyway, I didn't have nothing.  Nothing fancy. 

And I was already used of that so it didn't bother me.  How I'm dressed.  If I'm poor or whatever.  That's the farthest thing from my head.  That's the farthest thing from my head is I was going to have nice clothes on.  I don't even care.  And -- and we went like that for so many years.
 
Gee whiz sakes, I think I'm going to talk with Bertha one of these times and try to think back.  We didn't get -- we didn't get much pay for I don't know how many years, but we were going to school and us, we are going to school, you know, they are -- they are adding more and more to it until -- until we got to Phase 4 and then other workshops were coming and we're going -- we're going back to Fairbanks with all the other health aides and we go through training for traumas and emergencies, what to do. 

Well, I don't know how many years I did all this, and then -- but I wasn't the only one that was in training.  Somebody else was training right there in Huslia, too, the alternates. 

So we had airplane crash one time.  And it was pretty bad.  And later on I told my supervisor in Galena when she came to Huslia, I said, well, Nancy, it didn't take us long before we had -- we fixed this burned person.  We worked pretty quick.  There's two patients.  We worked pretty quick with the IVs and oxygen and dressing. 

And it happened that big airplane already was in Huslia, they were doing other business, bringing school kids around for sports or something.  We -- we got ahold of that one. 

So I said, I said to Nancy Schupp, I said, Nancy, it didn't take us long.  Seems like we went -- we went there and we were done pretty quick.  We already had the patients all hooked up on everything and were on to Fairbanks. 

And this is old days, there's no medevac, air ambulance, or team for the air ambulance.  We were the team.  And we flew in, both of us, with our alternate. 

MARLA:  Who was that? 

ROSE:  Roger Huntington and Scott Waterman.  He's Non-Native.
 
MARLA:  He was your alternate?
 
ROSE:  Marty, Marty Sam -- Marty Summer, Billy Sam's daughter, but she's smart girl.  Smart girl.  So I said, Nancy, it didn't take us long.  I said, in no time we were done.  And we were in the air, I said.  And she said, well, it couldn't have happened in any better place.