KAREN: So, once you agreed to be the health aide in 1965, then what?

TRUDY: Then I was a health aide!

KAREN: Did you have any background? Did they train you?

TRUDY: Oh yeah. We had jillions of training. That's where I met Dr. Johnson.

KAREN: Uh-huh.

TRUDY: He was our, at the time, was one of our instructors. He was so good.

KAREN: So, you went to Anchorage for training?

TRUDY: Uh-huh (affirmative). I trained one week in Sitka - the very beginning and my baby was only one day old when I went to training.

KAREN: Oh my goodness.

TRUDY: And my cousin took him, boarded him for the time I was in school. She happened to be really good friends with a lady that was in charge of those kind of things. And she got my cousin to take care of the baby. So, I think I went home about a week or ten days after he was born.

KAREN: So, had you been in Sitka to have him or did you have him --

TRUDY: I went to Sitka to have him, to Mt. Edgecumbe. My very last one. That's why I went. But I was gonna have surgery but they didn't do it, at the time.

KAREN: How many children did you have?

TRUDY: I have eight now. My one daughter drowned, so I have seven. I adopted her little boy, her oldest boy. So I'm back to eight.

KAREN: It's a lucky number maybe.

TRUDY: I have six boys, two girls.

KAREN: So, how did you manage that, with a brand new baby and having to go to work as the health aide.

TRUDY: Oh, my husband was home. And my kids were home. My kids were grown up. They were growing up with us. We used to play outside with them, play games outside with them. And after I had the baby, they thought, well they had to pitch in 'cause we played a lot of games outside with them.

And they thought, well we took our time to be with them, so they'll take time to help us, so they helped us with the baby --

KAREN: Oh, that's good --

TRUDY: When they were out of school. During school hours, the father took care of them.

KAREN: Uh-huh.

TRUDY: Maybe two or three times we got a babysitter, but that was it.