BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION FOR GRACE SCHAIBLE
Both of my parents were immigrants. My father came
from Otteren, near Davik, Nordfjord, Norway. My mother
came from a village near Lindesberg in central Sweden.
Both arrived in the United States in 1910 but didn't meet
until 1915 when my mother came to visit her sister. By
that time my father had been living in the Territory for a
couple of years. They met at a wedding and then were
married a year later. They stayed in Alaska until the end
of their lives. My father died in 1967 and my mother in
1975.
Unfortunately I was not born in Alaska. My mother
left the Territory in the fall of 1925 about seven month's
pregnant. I was born in Tacoma (sorry) on November 28,
1925 and came to Alaska as a babe in arms sometime, I
believe, in 1926.
I attended the Juneau Public Schools from Kindergarten
through high school graduation which took place in May of
1943. I worked for a couple of years before starting
college and then worked again for a couple of years before
going to graduate school. The pattern was repeated before
I chose to go to Law School.
My husband and I were married on Christmas Day in New
York City. I had two weeks left of Law School before
completing my degree requirements and we decided not to
wait for the degree. He was a practicing surgeon in
Fairbanks although he had originally come to Alaska with
the Indian Health Service as a doctor in charge of the
hospital at Tanana, Alaska.
Even though we each had our own busy practice we made
an effort every two years at first and then every year
later to travel to a different part of the world for an
extended visit. We spent two months in 1959 mostly in
Africa although we stayed in Greece and Denmark each for a
few days. In 1960 we spent time in Norway, Sweden, Finland
and then the month of November in the Soviet Union. In
1962 we went to Mexico for a month and in 1964 returned to
Africa visiting friends and relatives in what is now
Namibia and all over South Africa.
It sounds as if all of our travel was abroad. That is
simply not the case. We spent time in Southeastern Alaska
with my family and also fished regularly at Paxon Lake and
Valdez. In 1964 we traveled on the ferry, Tustamena, so
that we could see the devastation of the earthquake and
tsunami at Anchorage, Kenai, Homer, Seldovia, Kodiak,
Seward, Valdez and Cordova.
Every three years we would go to Hawaii for the meeting of
the Pan Pacific Surgical Congress following the triennial
meeting of the American College of Surgeons in San
Francisco. Eventually we bought a condo on the Kona Coast
which my husband used extensively and I visited on
occasion.
In 1967 my husband spent some time in Japan while I stayed
home in Fairbanks to attend to some rather urgent City of
Fairbanks business (Our law firm was the City Attorney at
the time and I was responsible for all civil matters under
the direction of the City Manager). We met for our only
Christmas away from Fairbanks in Hawaii.
In 1968 we spent a couple of months in Europe with my
husband working with a urologist in Vienna while I spent my
days wandering around checking out museums, etc. Every
evening in Vienna we would attend the opera. Later we
traveled around Germany, Holland and Denmark for the
remainder of our time returning home in time for the
Christmas holidays.
In 1970 I was finally persuaded to take a long sea voyage
on the Norwegian-American Line ship Sagafjord. The voyage
started in New York and returned there after 52 days at sea
stopping in Fort Lauderdale, Barbados, Rio, Cape Town,
Walvis Bay, Lobito, Luanda, Freetown, Monrovia, Dakar,
Tenerife and finally St. Thomas and back to Florida and New
York.
In 1973 we spent a couple of months in India, Southeast
Asia, Hong Kong and Japan. My husband had been invited to
the All-Asian Congress of the International College of
Surgeons to talk about distance delivery of medical care
which had just started in Alaska via radio.
In 1976 we spent three months in England, East Africa on a
series of safaris, the Seychelles Islands and back to
England and Scotland in time for the Edinburgh Festival.
At that time we also visited Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam.
In 1977 we traveled to Japan for a short visit. Then we
boarded a Russian steamer to take us to Nakhodka and the
beginning of our journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway to
Moscow with long stops in Irkutsk and Novosibirsk. I had
to return to Alaska to take care of some matters with
Arctic Slope Regional Corporation while my husband spent a
few weeks in the Balkans.
In 1979 we made our first trip to China with the Alumni
Group of the University of Alaska. We had always wanted to
go since we had seen China across the Amur River and had
seen the border area while in Nepal. It was a short visit
and we planned to go again. Later that year my husband
gave into my pleas to see the North Atlantic and we
traveled by ship for several weeks visiting England,
Germany, the Orkney Islands, the Faeroes, Iceland, Jan
Mayen, and finally Svalbard where we spent a couple of days
on the west coast of Spitzbergen and a week following the
fjords of Norway from North Cape south to Bergen.
At the time of my husband's death in January of 1980 we had
along list of places we wanted to visit. Over the years I
have made every attempt to go to them with the exception of
Iran and Afghanistan.
My main passion is watching polar bears and almost every
year I travel to the Canadian Arctic or Svalbard to watch
them. My husband started a polar bear art collection in
1968 when we were visiting in Germany and I have continued
to add to that collection which is now being inventoried.
The collection is scheduled to be given to the University
of Alaska Museum on my death. It is believed to be one of
the largest collection of its kind with many bronzes, stone
sculptures from both Eskimo and Inuit artists, original
oils, prints from mainly Inuit artists, crystal, ivory,
porcelain and lots of "cutesy" items.
I can't find the list of awards given but most of them are
mentioned in the video which is attached. Although mention
was made that I was the first (and so far only) woman to
serve as Attorney General, I think that I am just as proud
to have been the first (and so far only) woman to serve as
Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Alaska Permanent Fund
Corporation. I am equally proud to have served as the
Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Alaska Chapter of the
Nature Conservancy and well as the Chair of the Foraker
Group.
Although I am no longer active in the practice of law I do
pay attention to the positions taken by the American Bar
Association some of which please me but some of which
distress me.
I am no longer politically active except with money and
even then less so on a national scale. I have been a
member of EMILY's List almost since it started and have
always contributed to the recommended candidates (all of
which must be pro-choice Democratic women). By choice most
of my political dollars are spent in Alaska and for
candidates I have known and trust on the local and state
level.
You may have gathered that I am a registered Democrat and I
am proud to be one. I come from a strict, conservative
Republican family but have been a Democrat since I was a
teen-ager simply because the Democrats in Juneau answered
my questions at the time when the Republicans sort of said
shut up and sit down.
RESUME OF GRACE BERG SCHAIBLE
Prepared from memory, December 2003
1941-1943
Worked for my father's company as part-time
Secretary and bookkeeper while still in
High School
1943-1944
Worked as secretary for the U. S. Forest
Service Regional Office, Juneau
1944-1945
Worked as secretary to the Superintendent
of Schools, Juneau. Had temporary teaching
Certificate for training office assistants.
1945-1947
Attended the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. Also worked part-time as secretary
to the Dean of the University and the Dean
of the School of Mines. In the summers I
went home to Juneau to work with the Forest
Service or some other federal agency.
1947-1948
Attended George Washington University in
Washington, D. C. and worked part-time as
Secretary to the Director of Veterans'
Affairs.
1948-1949
Attended the University of Alaska again.
Worked part-time as secretary to the
Director of the Geophysical Institute.
1949-1950
After graduation I worked as secretary to
The first president of the University as
well as the secretary to the second president.
1950-1951
Worked for my father's company in Ketchikan
for the summer months and returned to Juneau
to work for the Office of Price Stabilization.
1951-1952
Attended George Washington University to
work on my master's degree and worked parttime as task supervisor and assistant
security officer for the Human Resources
Research Office, a University partnership
with the Department of the Army.
1952-1953
Continued attending George Washington
University and continued working for
HUMRRO.
1953-1955
Finished writing my master's thesis and
then starting working as research analyst
for the first Alaska Legislative Council
preparing studies for use by the Legislature in the 1955 session.
1955-1956
Finished my first term at Yale Law School;
Became ill and returned to Alaska and
later filled in with the Legislative
Council and was for a short time, the
Interim Executive Director before returning
to Law School
1956-1959
Continued at Yale Law School finishing my
Degree work in January of 1959. Went on my
honeymoon and then clerked for the law firm
Of McNealy, Merdes, Camarot and Fitzgerald
before taking the bar exam in October.
1960-1986
Practiced law in Fairbanks with the firm of
McNealy & Merdes which later became Merdes,
Schaible, Staley and DeLisio and then
Schaible, Staley, DeLisio and Cook. Nine
years of that time I served as General
Counsel for Arctic Slope Regional
Corporation, spending about a week a month
in Barrow or on loan to the village corporations.
1987-1989
Served as Attorney General for the State of
Alaska
1989-1990
Took about nine months off to travel around
the world with friends and then to live in
England for six months. Returned to
Fairbanks and joined the law firm of Cook,
Schuhmann & Groseclose as Of Counsel.
1990-2000
Worked part-time Of Counsel but spent quite
a bit of time as a volunteer including
my second term as a member of the Board
of Trustees of the Alaska Permanent Fund
Corporation.
2000-2003
Retirement is what they call it!