00:00 I was born there, I lived there all the way through. I didn't know my mom, people told me that my mom passed away. That's all I knew. 00:21 I don't know my mom. My grandma took care of me all the way through. My mom was sick and I used to stay with my grandma. 00:32 I that what I lived all the way through. I lived with my grandma. 00:37 My grandma loved me so much. 00:41 All the way through. When maybe I'm seven years old or eight years old I started working for my grandma. 00:50 I would cut wood, pack water, everything I do for him. Bring wood for him. What he tell me, I took care of all the way through. 01:04 He talked to me all the time too. When he die, I know what way I'm going to live it. And just what I listened to my grandma all the time, I don't know. 01:17 I never thought my grandma would die. I so loved my grandma. And pretty soon, I'm gonna, and I'm a big girl, I'm over ten years old. 01:29 and I started working for trapping, hunting, everything I do, I bring meat for him, my grandma. I do it. 01:41 I haul wood every day, I cut wood every day. I make hot steam for my grandma and all the way through. I be with my grandma all the time. By my grandma is just like my life all the way through. i so loved my grandma. 02:06 My grandma talked to me all the time, he need you the time, what you gonna do. and summertime my grandma cut fish, I got along side to him and help him pack up and bring it from the water. I wash for him and hang up. All summer I take care and I got three dogs. 02:43 I have to for my dog, feed, my grandma told me which way to cut fish. 02:48 I do, and I do not too good and I keep for my dog and I don't use it, and when we go hunting up to the mountain, Banzanetias place up there my grandma would always we come behind. 03:09 everyone left and we would stay behind, my grandma told me, you pray all the time, what way people have a good life he had to go there. We make lots of dry meat and my uncle kill sheep, only one we live on sheep and salmon that we eat, we don't have whitefish, nothing only two kind we eat. 03:41 We eat all the time. After three months, we stay up there hunting and we start to come back and we bring lots of meat and lots of sheep skin and my grandmother, she tan those sheep skin and he make us our parka and he make us our winter pants, everything and we play warm all the time out there and we go ice on the brush. We set snares for rabbit and we chase rabbits and everything we do and we bring it in all the time. 04:28 We put away everything and what grandma told us always and after that, after we have to do our own to do everything. 04:41 When we's big girl always people we go out there, grandma and grandpa sometimes out there he sit his doorway and we try to go past and he stop for us. And he talk which way we going to live it, which way we have to life. And he stop for us and he talk to us and some girls he don't want to listen to old people. All my cousins and all my friends he don't want to listen, me I don't say nothing, just I listen, and those people point to me and say " this one she's going to have a good life." This right is he say that right now. 05:27 We have to listen old people what they said. he know what kind of life he got that why we have to listen. 05:45 And my grandma told me when I'm nuff big he talked to me all the time. Someday you gonna get married you have a kid don't jealous your husband he gonna fight you and someday you get married and don't mean over your kid. When you kid cry out there, just go out and take his hand and don't mad to people, be nice to people and people love you that way. Don't forget, don't forget Nek'eltaeni "God" god he say Nek'eltaeni, don't forget him. Really up heaven, god my grandma said. My grandma morning he out pray. 06:33 And twelve o'clock he pray. Sun's go down he pray. And my grandma sometimes make scare what he talk all the time. And after that he come in and lots of kid play out there. and tell me don't you go out, out there is darkness, darkness. Some kind of bad stuff go into your heart and you turn to bad girl. Just what girls do that you sit down, you sleep don't go out my grandma told me the time. 07:13 Gee I want play out there with my friend and my cousin play all night time and my grandma, my cousin, told me old lady she sleeps all the time. and I'm afraid my grandma might wake up, when she wakes up she takes her stick and hits my feet, jump out, go out. And I started to run into the brush and I pulled down those brush down and break it down and I come back and I bring the wood and I come in, eat and I start to eat and my grandma tell me what to do. And sometime, I don't know, sometimes I play out there daytime, I play girls and my cousin and afternoon he tell his kid to come back come in, you guys eat his mom told him. geez, I wish I had a mom. 08:21 He run and go home and I stay behind and I sit on the ground and I cry all the time. And my grandma would come and take my hand, take me home, he talked to me, he talked to me. and he and too much I worked for my grandma, I can't learn anything. too much cut wood and pack water, haul wood, just every day every day. and everything thing is hard to cut wood and I have no time to learn something to sewing. And after I'm about seventeen my grandma she get sick and my grandma has his clothes when he die he put on people put on, he got big sack and he bring it in and my grandma call me he say I go back to God, he said in indian language he go back to God in three days. 09:34 And my grandma say take my clothes down there quick, I went down to my aunts and my grandma say she gonna die and to bring his clothes. And my aunt told me maybe this is right, she say that. I went to cache and bring sack and I leave it out there and I open tent and my grandma had passed away. 10:03 Oh my heart breaking, I don't know, it like, it like I don't know where I am. Gee I don't know what I'm gonna do. I go to my aunt's house and I can't stand my aunt's house too. i don't care too much. 10:30 ummm. pause.... And just my own, I started doing something, I wanted to live my own I'm enough old, I want to live my own. What my grandma told me. What she told me how to live and how to do everything and I have my own and I want live it. I not forget God though, I think about God, what way my grandma pray. 11:03 I pray all the time. I'm glad my grandma take right place before he leave me. Everytime he tell me which way to be around people, always he tell me what to do around people. 11:21 Nice to people, give good food to people when enough old, I do that. And when we go out hunting, Mentasta, this side lake we hunt muskrat, all my aunt we went hunting. we went to Mentasta, I was seventeen I think, or 19, and my aunt, them made a big boat. And my sister, I raise my sister too and my aunt take away from me he 8 years old, he hurt my heart. He left in a boat, before he left, my aunt tell me some man, he got wife though, you stay with him and take care of his wife. I don't like that I don't want it, I don't like man. And out there I make little canvas I put on, I build a fire there and got my two dogs there. 12:43 I cry I cry bad, I miss my sister too, little one and right some man came to there and he talked to me and he lay down on the other side of my fire. He lay down and he talked to me. Don't you cry to much you should try to take care of yourself. Next time he told me tomorrow, next time he told me tomorrow we have to go to Tanacross. And Fred John and me, they all young, he's young too. And you right, he said, just little bit. 13:35 And I asked him I want you to take note for me to Tanacross minister. Those people told me to stay with, my aunt told me to stay with that married man, I don't know, I don't know, I don't want it. I don't think I'm happy, I don't want it. I told him don't show to nobody. No I don't show to nobody. And he left the next morning. 14:12 And after three days, he gave to mission that note. In the next three days all Tanacross people came and my aunts' husbands all came and he hugged me and told me we will take you home with us. 14:32 After how many days they stayed there, he go home, I take my two dog and I take all my stuff I left to Tanacross to Missions house, I stay with Mission. 14:47 Nice, they take care of me nice. Arthur Wright's mom and two little boys Arthur and Alfred, they have two little boys. I take care of them his school there, he take care of me nice, I like it there, but I miss my country though. Maybe someday I'm going to go back to my country I think that, I think it all the time, night time. 15:26 When he goes skating and he send them boys with me to go skating up there to watch skate, skating up there, those Tanacross boys and girls were skating on the river, I'm too new, I can't talk too much to people there. 15:43 Always they go visiting to my aunts all the time once in a while. sometimes take me there and one year I stay with the minister there, he told me you want to get married. How come you don't talk about boys, he told me. I say, I don't say nothing, and I said I don't know and after late on, how many months, I have nothing to do. Gee, I don't know what to think. 16:21 And he got boys for me, everybody want to marry me and he asked and last time he found boys for me and I don't go out with him and just don't go, nothing and make us married and I have my own livit now. I miss those ministers too. 16:48 I lived with them. some old people talk to me out there what I'm going to do. I'm first married, I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know those people, they came from Salchaket, that man he talked to me to, I don't know which way to live it. don't left your home, stay home and do something. I don't sew to learn nothing and I start to thinking I start to try to sew something.

I watched those people sewing, I watched them all the time. 17:40 Gee, I don't know what to do. Pretty soon I start sewing my, I tried to tan skin and hard to tan skin, pretty soon I learned to tan skins and I started sewing, I watched people all the time, those girls working all the time. 17:59 Before I afraid to watch I scare to people to.

After that, I have a kid, I started my kid, and some people out there he sick. some people sick from TB and he scare to take care of those people.

I go there always, always I work for cleaning up everything and give them tea and they pray for me all the time. 18:29 I believe God that how come I do and I'm not afraid of anything. and after that everywhere I go I went to Tetlin hunting, muskrat hunting. All my husband and I take my kids, before I had one kid, we'd go over there and hunt muskrat and kill muskrat and muskrat cheap too. Sometime dollar and half and fifty cents that's all it be. and right now everything is lotsy anything. Always i started to learn sewing for my own way. 19:17 When I'm young girl, people tell us to train yourself, when people have a woman and he make them stop to learn something from him and what we gonna do sewing something, me, I don't have no mother, nobody teach me. that's why I'm big I started to learn myself, some girl he have a mom to teach him when he start to be a woman. Everything. Me nothing, I don't have no family, I don't have no sister nothing, no brother all he die, when I small, I don't know them. And this why I started to learn myself 20:08 to learn everything too. And pretty soon, I take care of people all the time who have baby, who have baby, have baby pain, I go there always and I take care for baby. Baby born, I clean his mom up, I clean up, I make him lay there, in the morning time, I come see him, and in the afternoon sometime I come see him, people mad me sometimes, I work for bad sick people, what you doing you kids might get sick from TB everything, and I don't say nothing, I don't answer people, this I listen, that's all. And just I pray all the time to where I go always I say "God be with me" if I do something to take care of those people. I have a food, I work hard, I pick berries and cut fish and I have a meat and take care good and I share with other people who don't do nothing. I give it to him all the time. 21:25 People just pray and proud some people come from someplace and he cry in my doorway to come in. I clean them up, I fix his bed up and I cook for him, sometimes a couple of days I keep him old people. And I miss him right now, everyone that I did for him. Right now I have a grandaughter, my first grandaughter to Tracy born I take it myself to raise him. And I teach him to how to live it. I talked to him all the time. Because he listen me. I don't learn white people job, I learn indian job. And he take care of me good. I learn and I sew what I make it all the time. 22:30 I make my kid clothes, I make my kid moccasins, I make my kids glouse, everything i learn. I don't buy glouse for my kid, I had to learn how to do and it's what I do for my kid., I make everything for him, he enjoy. I like beadwork all the time right now, I need all the time to do something. Right now to everything. That why I ask people to always my grandkids all the time, all the time, my kids sew good, but they don't want to work, he work for white people, that's all he want to work. 23:20 Just like we learn our own stuff, we use it. we don't have everything all the time. I don't ask people and say I don't have nothing, i know god take care of me all the way through. And something I wanted, I pray all the time, where I go people give me something all the time. 23:56 I want to listen the lord, that's what I do all the time. And this is all my life, I'm doing what I'm doing, I enjoy to do that all the time.


I'm happy. I don't want to hate people, I love people I love little kids. everything right now god has given to me I share to other people. My kid all grown up, he left me my grandkids all left me lone I stay now. 24:42 He come see me once in a while, all my heart I say thank you Jesus all the time. Thank you Jesus night and day. I asking god that my life be straighten. Today my grandma all the time I think, I not forget my grandma, I still think about my grandma. I always say "thank you grandma, you gave me good life" right now I say all the time too. I still have my grandma's picture too, I see it once in a while, my grandma. 25:23 That's what i live.