Biography
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 as 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 teenager simply because the Democrats in Juneau answered my questions at the time when the Republicans sort of said shut up and sit down.
Related Articles
Dermot Cole, Grace Schaible, first woman attorney general in Alaska, inspired generations, Anchorage Daily News (June 10, 2017), https://www.adn.com/opinions/2017/06/10/grace-schaible-first-woman-attorney-general-in-alaska-inspired-generations/ [https://perma.cc/PK9S-QVGU].
Rod Boyce, Grace Schaible, UA benefactor and first female Alaska attorney general, dies, Daily News-Miner (June 10, 2017), http://www.newsminer.com/news/local_news/grace-schaible-ua-benefactor-and-first-female-alaska-attorney-general/article_60833914-4e29-11e7-af23-1f2d1c2cad59.html.
