KAREN: So, why did you want to be a doctor?

TRUDY: Because I wanted to be. Why would you want to be a doctor. I wanted to help people. I just was not the kind of person that will say I want to be a doctor, just to be a doctor, just for the namesake, that was for the people. I really like working with people.

Even in Sheldon Jackson I had the opportunity to work with different people. I had a house mother there that was from Sitka. She was so nice, gosh, couldn't do no wrong. Just everything I said, always she wrote it down, don't know why she did that. She took care of me, how she took care of me all the time.

When my mother was carrying my youngest brother, I quit school. My senior year, I quit in April. God, the whole staff at Sheldon Jackson were just fit to be tied when I quit. I went home. I told them: ”I'm going home because my mother is very sick.”

Mr. Streeall(?) called me up and he said: “You'd better come back to school. They want you to go back to school because it's almost graduation time and you'd better come back.” And “I don't want to come back for that,” I said.“My mother is sick.”

He said: “Well, you could come back to school, I'll pick you up in the morning, take you back down after school.” I said: “That doesn't help matters any.” And he said: “No, I would do it, just so you go back to school.”

So, I went back to school, graduated. 1952 I graduated. My brother was born in July. I took care of him. My mother was very very sick. But I was glad I was there to take care of her.

KAREN: So, when you became a health aide were your parents still alive?

TRUDY: Uh-hum (affirmative).

KAREN: What did they think of you --

TRUDY: -- Oh, they thought that it was pretty good that I was a health aide. My dad was always proud of me anyway but it was my mother that they had to convince.