Bob Ahgook was Nunamiut Iñupiaq and was born on September 29, 1929 to Myrtle and Jesse Ahgook near the mouth of the Colville River in northern Alaska. He and his family moved around quite a bit until they settled in the village of Anaktuvuk Pass in the 1940's. In 1953, a flu epidemic hit and Bob helped administer penicillin to the village. In 1968, he was selected as a community health aide by village members because people always came to him for help. He had five children to support and was... Read More

Hannah Anderson was born on December 10, 1924 to Eva Brasil and David Tobuk in Alatna, Alaska, and was raised in Old Bettles (five miles downriver from the current Bettles site). Her father was a sternwheeler operator and her mother raised Hannah and her three siblings. Hannah's mother died young, so Hannah helped raise her younger siblings, and moved into Fairbanks when she was seventeen years old. Hannah moved back to Bettles in 1948 when her husband, pilot James "Andy" Anderson was hired... Read More

Irene Tagumaaq Aukongak was born on January 2, 1937 in the village of Upper Kalskag, Alaska. Her father was a fur trapper so the family moved around a lot, and the children missed a lot of school. Eventually, she and her younger sister spent three years at the Holy Cross Mission school in Holy Cross, Alaska. From 1954 to 1955, Irene attended licensed practical nurse training at Mt. Edgecumbe School in Sitka, Alaska. She got a job as a nurse at the... Read More

Elsie Bergman is Koyukon Athabascan and was born in September 1944 to Mary and Arthur Williams in Allakaket, Alaska. She grew up living a traditional subsistence lifestyle based upon hunting, fishing, trapping and berry picking with her father, step-mother (Jenny Williams) and siblings. Elsie married Kenneth Bergman, Sr. on December 31, 1962 at the St. John's in the Wilderness Church when it was 62 degrees below zero. Together they had seven kids, raised their three grandchildren, and cared... Read More

Rita Buck was born in 1952 in her grandmother's cabin in Golovin, Alaska. When Rita was three years old, her mother, Martha, married Steven Agloinga and they moved to White Mountain. She attended grade school in White Mountain and graduated from high school in Unalakleet in 1971. In 1973, Rita applied to be an alternate health aide in White Mountain and worked with and learned from Willa Ashenfelter. Rita received her health aide certification in 1987, became a full-time health aide in 1994... Read More

Originally from Chevy Chase, Maryland, Linda Curda attended the University of Maryland School of Nursing and upon graduation in 1972 drove to Alaska with her husband. She got a job as a nurse at the US Public Health Service Native hospital in Bethel where she mostly focused on birth and babies. From 1975 to 1977, she completed a combined Nurse Midwifery and Masters of Public Health program at Johns Hopkins University, and taught in the program for three years while her husband completed law... Read More

Moses Ulurilnguq Frederick is Yup'ik and was born on July 21, 1957 to Pauline and Herman Frederick, Sr. at their fish camp near Akiachak, Alaska. Moses grew up in Akiachak as one of eight children. He became a community health aide there in 1978 and worked with and learned from Elsie Wasillie, the village's first health aide. In 1992, Moses became a village supervisor/instructor (VSI) with the Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation (YKHC) based in Bethel, Alaska where he travels to... Read More

Roy Huhndorf is Yup'ik and was born in 1940 in Nulato, Alaska on the Yukon River. He moved to Anchorage in 1955 and made it his permanent home. He has a bachelor's degree in education and a master's degree in business administration from the University of Alaska. He was the statewide administrator for the Community Health Aide Program (CHAP) from 1972 to 1975, and president of the Cook Inlet Regional Corporation (CIRI) from 1975 to 1996. He was a member of the CIRI Board of Directors from... Read More

Jessie Jim was Tlingit and was born August 15, 1939 to Nadja and John Gamble in Angoon, Alaska. She went to high school at Mt. Edgecumbe School in Sitka, Alaska, and after graduating in 1958 went on to receive her Licensed Practical Nursing certification in 1960. She moved back to Angoon around 1962 and started as a volunteer health aide, working out of her home with limited equipment and medicine. Eventually, she got paid for her work and was provided a small space in the school to see... Read More

Born in Nebraska in 1922, Walter Johnson came to Alaska in 1942 to attend the University of Alaska Fairbanks. After meeting Bill English at the university, who was originally from Wiseman, Walter got to know and visit the community. With a concern for history, he and Bill bought the Wiseman Trading Company, and he lived off and on in Wiseman for seven years starting in 1945. Walter is an expert on the history of the Wiseman area. After completing bachelor degrees in Anthropology and Biology... Read More

Martina Redfox Lauterbach is Yup'ik and was born in Kwiguk, Alaska, two miles up river from the village of Emmonak, Alaska, which is located at the mouth of the Yukon River. She grew up in Emmonak, graduated from high school in Oregon in 1969, and was the community health aide in Emmonak from 1969 to 1972. In 1972, she went to nursing school and earned a bachelor of science degree in nursing from Alaska Methodist University (now Alaska Pacific University) in Anchorage in 1976. She was the... Read More

Clara Baldwin Morgan is Yup'ik and was born on March 19, 1940 at the family's winter camp a few miles downriver from the village of Lower Kalskag, Alaska. Clara married William "Billy" Morgan in November 1958 and they settled in Aniak, Alaska. Clara began her health care career in 1958 when she and Billy stepped forward as volunteer medical aides dispensing tuberculosis medicine to the people of Aniak. Clara continued on as the community health aide, but only started getting paid in 1968... Read More

Originally from the Eastern United States, Dr. Karen O'Neill came to Nome, Alaska in 1975 after completing her medical residency in Washington, DC. She came under the auspices of the National Health Service Corps and was a physician at Nome's Maynard McDougal Memorial Hospital just before Norton Sound Health Corporation took over the facility. She soon went to work for the Norton Sound Health Corporation as a doctor seeing patients at the Nome hospital and in villages, was Director of... Read More

Dr. Gloria Park was born in Spokane, Washington in 1930 and grew up in Grandview, Washington. She attended Washington State College (now University) where she received a Bachelors of Science in Zoology in 1952, and met her husband, Orlo. She graduated from the University of Colorado Medical School in 1955, and after completing her medical internship in Colorado, the Parks moved to Anchorage, Alaska in 1957 where Gloria had accepted a job as a doctor at the Alaska Native Medical Center (ANMC... Read More

Originally from California, Paul Sherry came to Alaska in 1974 as a Vista volunteer with the Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC) in Fairbanks to help organize their health department. He had attended Yale University and received a bachelors degree in behavioral health. After six months, he was hired as a community development specialist with TCC, where he provided logistical, training, travel and other non-clinical support to the community health aide program. He continued his career in Alaska... Read More

Joyce Smith was born in a small town in Washington in 1917, and remembers childhood asthma limiting her activities. She married her husband, Norman, in Marysville, Washington and in 1950 came with him to Kodiak Island. He traveled to the villages for the American Baptist Mission. They settled in Larsen Bay in 1952, then moved to Ouzinkie in 1958, where they ran the mission out of their home. Joyce taught kindergarten, raised five children, and worked as a health aide. She started as a... Read More

Agnes Valle was born on Kodiak Island, Alaska in 1935 and moved to Sitka, Alaska in 1952 for tuberculosis treatment. She became a Licensed Practical Nurse, and moved to Yakutat, Alaska in 1961. People knew her from the hospital, so they came to her for medical assistance. Agnes treated patients even though she was not paid. Eventually, the Yakutat Health Council selected her as a paid health aide. She worked until the mid-1970s. She was then a teacher's aide in the Yakutat school for twenty-... Read More

Rose Winkleman was born to Sophie and William T. Vanderpool in April 1920 in McGrath, Alaska. Her mother was originally from Anvik and her father had come to Alaska from Montana during the Klondike Gold Rush. Rose grew up on a homestead about a mile up the Kuskokwim River from the village in a family of ten children, and was sent out for high school to the Jesse Lee Home in Seward, Alaska. She married a man she met in Seward, but after they divorced, she moved back to McGrath in 1942 with... Read More