Rose Winkleman Transcript, Section 7

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Rose Winkleman,
Transcript Section 7

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KAREN: Yeah. Some of the other villages --

ROSE: I had to travel to other villages sometime.

KAREN: Oh, you did?

ROSE: Get in an airplane, go up to see somebody sick way up in the -- miles away.

KAREN: What was that like?

ROSE: It was just part of my job. I wasn't scared of airplanes. Some of the roughest rides I ever had was in these little airplanes, but I never was -- you know, growing up in the airplane country. Never had any accidents getting there.

KAREN: Did you deliver babies?

ROSE: One by myself. Only one by myself. It always happened that the Public Health was nurse there. The Public Health nurse was there. She did.

But there was one time I was on my own. And I had a problem with her. She -- she had come in from two or three weeks before she was due, she came from outside. And she didn't want to go back to Fairbanks -- Anchorage to deliver.

And so she just stayed there, you know, in McGrath. Which was fine. Her mother-in-law was there and helped me, which was fine, but then the afterbirth, you know, sometimes the afterbirth doesn't -- doesn't come readily and -- and I had to ship her into Anchorage. And that would be my -- that would be my luck to have that problem.

Ordinarily -- I've been -- we had even traveled up to Nikolai and places with the Public Health nurse and I'd deliver a baby. That was kind of fun. Kind of fun because I wasn't the responsible one, in charge. I was just helping.

KAREN: Now, were there midwives in to help also?

ROSE: They didn't have no official midwives. You know, lots of those Native women knew how to deliver their babies, and stuff. You know.

I remember I was in Nikolai with the Public Health nurse once, and this woman had a -- this patient had a -- she had that same problem I just mentioned. The afterbirth wouldn't come.

And those Native women, they would wash their hand real good and just go in and turn the baby, but the Public Health nurse, of course, wouldn't do that, you know. That wasn't -- that was something she didn't do. So this woman said, well, I'll do it. We always do this. Turned the baby. Otherwise, it would have been breach.

KAREN: Oh, yeah.

ROSE: And it turned out fine.