Grace Berg Schaible

May 18, 2006; June 28, 2006; November 21, 2006; December 5, 2006; December 15, 2006

Recommended Transcript of Interview with Grace Berg Schaible (May 18, 2006; June 28, Citation 2006; Nov. 21, 2006; Dec. 5, 2006; Dec. 15, 2006), https://abawtp.law.stanford.edu/exhibits/show/grace-berg-schaible.

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ABA Commission on Women in the Profession

Women Trailblazers in the Law

ORAL HISTORY

of

GRACE BERG SCHAIBLE

Interviewer: Donna C. Willard-Jones

Dates of Interviews:

May 18, 2006 June 28, 2006 November 21, 2006 December 5, 2006 December 15, 2006 VOLUME I

INTERVIEW OF GRACE BERG SCHAIBLE May 18, 2006 2

P R O C E E D I N G S

MS. WILLARD: It is May 18th, 2006. We are in Fairbanks, Alaska. My name is Donna Willard-Jones and with me is Grace Berg Schaible who I am going to interview for the American Bar Association's Women's Commission Oral History Project. And with that, Grace, it's great to be here with you. I've read all of the materials that I could find about you. You have a fascinating life and I think that any future audience is going to thoroughly enjoy most certainty its most unique aspects, situated as we are in the great State of Alaska. So with that, could you tell me, please about your family background?

MS. SCHAIBLE: Certainly. My father was born in Norway in 1887. He came to the United States in May of 1910 on the first trip of the Mauritania from Liverpool and went west and spent some time with a shirttail relative in Jamestown, North Dakota. And then went to Tacoma and spent more time with another shirttail relative in Tacoma. Because English was not taught in the schools in Norway beyond, oh, I think maybe the second or third -- equivalent of the second or third grade, my father felt that his English was sadly lacking and so he enrolled in Pacific Lutheran Academy which was a predecessor of Pacific Lutheran University. And while he was there, of course, he played basketball. He was six foot tall and 3 there weren't that many tall men so he played basketball and really learned to speak English. And -- but when basketball season was over and he thought his English was improved enough, there was a gold strike in Alaska in what they called the Shushink country~ I don't know how it's spelled, but we always heard it as Shushink. So he made his way to Alaska arriving in Cordova and then taking, I think, the railroad as far as McCarthy and then he walked into the Shushink country. MS. WILLARD: What year was that, Grace? MS. SCHAIBLE: That was 1913. Of course, he didn't strike it rich and he went back to Cordova to wait for transportation back to Seattle/Tacoma. And when he was in Cordova he met Anthony J. Dimond, also known at "Tony" Dimond, later our delegate to Congress, as well as territorial district judge. He also met Eustace Paul Ziegler, a very famous Alaskan painter who was at that time running an Episcopal reading room where my father spent most of his time. In addition he met a fellow Norwegian named George Osborn who asked my father, on returning to Seattle, if he would take some money to his daughter Lillian. He was divorced or separated from his wife, but he wanted to support his daughter and so asked my father to take the money. My father did and this little girl opened the door. My father said who he was and he was bringing something from her father. Gave her the money. Later she was 4 Lillian Crosson, the wife of one of Alaska's great airplane pilots. He was the man who recovered the bodies of Will Rogers and ..... MS. WILLARD: Wiley Post. MS. SCHAIBLE: ..... and Wiley Post from their crash near Barrow, but in any event it was an arrangement that I've known all my life, that my father was fortunate in meeting all these people. Mr. Osborn later moved to Juneau and remarried and had a large family and was a very successful jeweler there. Incidently, when he was in Cordova, he was a partner with Harry Avnkoff who later became a famous jeweler here in Fairbanks. He went back to Tacoma, packed up his bags and said I'm moving to Alaska. And it was because Southeastern Alaska reminded him so much of Norway. He was born in Noraijord and at that time Noraijord had almost been logged off, but the new growth was just starting to come back and Southeastern reminded him of that, so he walked off the ship in Juneau and asked what are they building and with his accent they knew he was Scandinavian and so they said go see old man Jaeger. He's building a hotel. My father was a master carpenter from Norway, having started at the age of 11 to train as a carpenter and he went and, of course, was immediately hired. You didn't find too many master carpenters in Juneau. After the hotel was built, he was asked to operate the pattern shop at the Perseverance mine. The pattern shop is where they make wooden molds to hold the sand to repair mining machinery 5 and so he did that at the Perseverance mine. And the master blacksmith at the Perseverance mine was a Swede named Oberg. Now this Berg and this Oberg became good friends and my father just loved to ski, of course, and so he made his own skis. Probably the first pair of skis in Southeastern Alaska and used to ski from the Perseverance mine which was, oh, five miles maybe back in the mountains from Juneau. Ski down to Juneau and visit people. In 1915 my mother came to Juneau. Her story was that she was born and raised in Sweden. She came from a fairly large family and she had lots of half-sisters and brothers, as well as her own sisters and brothers. And at the age of 14, I think, she went to work as, sort of, a maid/companion to a very wealthy family in Stockholm and just loved the job. The oldest daughter of the family was married into one of the German principality nobles and she spent a lot of time in Sweden, in Stockholm, and proceeded to teach my mother to speak German because that was where they thought she was going to go after she finished this long term arrangement with this family. But my mother decided no, she was going to go to the United States. So she took a steamer from Gothenberg Gotaborg to Harwich in England and crossed over to Liverpool and then caught the second voyage of the Mauritania in May of 1910 to New York. She always mentioned on her arrival in New York seeing the Statute of Liberty and also seeing Halley's comet that -- and so 1976, of course, when it appeared again we all celebrated my mother's arrival in the 6

United States even though she and my father were both deceased at that point. She went to Minnesota like most Scandinavians, but didn't like Minnesota, thought it was too cold and moved to Iowa which I couldn't see was that much warmer, but she worked in Des Moines for a family. I can't remember their name, although I knew it for years, but she worked for this family in Des Moines who lived next door to Henry Wallace's family and so she watched Henry Wallace grow up. The family moved to Colorado Springs every summer and so my mother spent in summers in Colorado and her winters in Des Moines until her sister, who had immigrated to the United States several years before, wrote to her and said you must come visit me in Alaska. I am married to another Swede named Oscar Oberg and so my mother went to Juneau for a two month visit and at a wedding of people who became later very, very close friends of the family, my parents met. So my father persuaded her to stay a little longer than two months, made her a pair of skis and persuaded her that maybe 1915 wasn't a good year to get married, but 1916 would be, so they were married in 1916 at the Lutheran Church in Douglas, Alaska, there being no Lutheran Church in Juneau at that time. And so they lived in Juneau. Their first house was on the hillside, I remember that and my father was called away to work at some of the smaller mining 7 operations north of Juneau, the Comet Mine and the current Kensington Mine. They needed a pattern shop operator and my father went and worked there for short periods of time and my mother stayed in Juneau. My oldest brother was born and then my older sister was born and then my father was offered a job at Chichagof. Chichagof Mine was the main mine on Chichagof Island, a gold mining operation where he ran the pattern shop again. And they asked him to do some mine timbering and at that point my mother, who grew up in a mining area in Sweden, said no, no underground work. You do your pattern shop and that will be it. It was a small mining camp, the permanent residences of which my brother later visited to see. My parents spent two or three years there. I can't remember how long it was, but my mother got to be friends with a couple of the Native women who were living and working in the community, one of them who was quite a basket maker, just spruce root baskets, and my mother bought some and she was given some and that started her spruce root basket collection. And after their three years, I think, they moved back to Juneau where my father was offered a position to maintain a series of apartment buildings in Juneau. And then he was ..... MS. WILLARD: About what year would that have been? MS. SCHAIBLE: That would have been 1924, I think. And I can't remember the exact sequence of events, but the shirttail relatives in Tacoma needed to have my father come back and supervise some construction. It was not a long term job, but 8 the family moved to Tacoma and my father decided it was a good thing. My mother was pregnant and the private hospital that my sister and brother had been born in no longer existed and my father did not want me born in a Catholic hospital. And it was largely a belief that I think was probably halfway true that if there's difficulty in the birth someone other than the husband has the right to decide who lives, the mother or the child, and my father was not about to be left with two small children to raise, or two or three small children to raise, and so he decided that yes, he would take this position with his shirttail relatives in Tacoma and I would be born in Tacoma. MS. WILLARD: What date? MS. SCHAIBLE: November 28th, 1925. And I think that they went in time for my sister and brother to be enrolled in school there and they stayed long enough for them to finish school in May of 1926 and I think that's the date that we came back to Alaska. MS. WILLARD: What are your brother's and sister's names?

MS. SCHAIBLE: My brother is Clifford, no middle initial, Berg, which is the traditional Norwegian name. If he were

living in Norway his name would be Clifford Hansen Berg. My father

was Hans Berg and my mother was Mandia Berg. My sister is Sylvia Marie Drowley which is -- my mother's name was Mandia Marie and she thought that sounded too foreign so my sister was named Marie. 9

My parents had quite an argument about what my name should be. My father said it's time that we do something in the Norwegian style besides for Cliff and I'd like to name her Bryggja and my mother said oh-oh, and why Bryggj a. That' s where her grandfather was living at the time she was born and that's a very typical thing. And my mother said how do you spell it and he said B-r-y-g-g-j-a. My mother said no. No child is ever going to be able to spell that. So -- and my mother said well, she should be named for her grandmothers in Sweden and my father said what's that and she said Emma Josefine and he said how do you spell Josefine and she said J-o-s-e-f-i-n-e and he said that sounds like Josephine and she said no, it's Josefine and so they quit the argument, named me after a friend, Grace Lucille. MS. WILLARD: Marvelous. MS. SCHAIBLE: So that's, sort of, the family

history. We came back to Juneau. I think it was in May of 1926 and ..... MS. WILLARD: Did you ever know your grandparents? MS. SCHAIBLE: No, my father's mother was born in 1840 and his father was born in 1857 so his mother lived to a ripe old age actually. And his father lived -- I don't know the exact year that his mother died, but they never moved out of Norway and his father died in 1935, I remember that. 10

And my mother's mother died when my mother was three years old and so she grew up living with relatives until her father remarried and she and her step-mother didn't get along and so she was farmed out again to relatives and I know very little about it. My mother talked mostly about her grandmother who was one of her very favorite people and something about her aunts. She had an aunt named Matilda Sjostrum and she was the wife of a Baltic Sea captain and smuggled porcelain out of Russia into Sweden. That's all I know about that side of the family. My sister knows a lot more about both the Norwegian and the Swedish families and I met a lot of the Norwegians ones in 1960 when I visited Norway, but I never found any of the Swedish relatives and I really wasn't terribly interested because after I was born my mother just, sort of, cut off relationships with her family in Sweden. MS. WILLARD: So you're back in Juneau in May of 1926? MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. And I have only one real memory of the house that my family had which was right on the edge of Gold Creek, the stream going through Juneau. My father had bought it before they went to Chichagof. And I don't remember the incident, but there was a threatened flood of the area and my father called home and told my mother -- my brother and sister were in school -- to get me out of the house and try for higher ground. He said he would be home to 11 help as quickly as he could be. And my father said when he got home there was my mother with a lamp in her hand, me in my crib with this lamp in her hand which she had just finished making and was taking that to safety. My father went and grabbed me and there was no flood, but it was a family lore that my mother preferred a lamp over me. But I grew up living in a very nice neighborhood in Juneau. It was right at the corner of B -- 10th and B Street and while living there my father built a new home for us at the corner of 11th and C Street and it was the first house that was being built in an addition to a subdivision that had been created. My father told me that we used to go chase the cows out of the meadow in order to get the house built. And it was a lovely, lovely area.

We moved on Holy Saturday and I don't remember, but my mother said that, as the people were moving into our old house, I would go back and ask them to please tell the Easter bunny I moved

because I was afraid I wasn't going to get my Easter basket. My bed had not arrived yet so I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor in my bedroom and when I woke up Easter morning a solid chocolate bunny was looking down at me. And then we did the Easter egg hunt and I wasn't permitted to go climbing on the rafters and things to get the Easter eggs, but we had a wonderful time. Great, great living. Down B Street we hqd a wonderful play yard and I used to go down there and play on the swings and we had neighbors. 12

Everybody was so close in the neighborhood. We were al 1 good friends. MS. WILLARD: I take it from what you told me both of your siblings were born in Juneau? MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. MS. WILLARD: Do you remember the dates of their births? MS. SCHAIBLE: My brother's was November 11th, 1917.

My sister's was May 25th, 1919, I think. MS. WILLARD: Were the three of you close as siblings?

MS. SCHAIBLE: No. My brother and sister were close, but I was too much younger. I was six years younger than my sister and eight years younger than my brother and, at that age,

they considered me a pain in the neck and I probably was. We were a family where my mother in the mornings tried to keep us all separated because none of us woke up easily and we tended to be rather grumpy and she wanted to avoid any kind of disturbance. So -- and I was not a breakfast eater -- I got to sit in my living room and have my orange juice. My sister sat in the kitchen and my brother sat in the dining room but we did have a good

relationship. We were all -- if anything happened to one of us, the others would say we'll make certain that doesn't happen again. MS. WILLARD: What are your first actual memories? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, I have a memory, and I think I 13 must have been three years old. and it was a Christmas and we were still in our old house. My mother had Christmas dinner for two bachelors. One of them was a grocer at the neighborhood grocery store. The other was a house builder. One was German and the other was Danish. And they brought me Christmas presents. The house builder brought me -- well, I don't know who brought what, but anyway I was given a wash tub, a zinc wash tub and drum sticks and just about drove my mother crazy, I'm sure. And the other gift -- well, I had an all year sucker. It was a caramel sucker. Not covered in chocolate, but a very large caramel thing that my parents had to break off for me. I couldn't break it. And it was supposed to last a year. Well, I'm sure it did last a year. The other was a wallpaper pattern book. And I do think they were good things for a little three year old. I pounded on the wash tub until I drove everyone crazy and I colored the wallpaper pattern book and they were wonderful gifts. It kept me occupied for days, kept me out of trouble, but that was my first memory of receiving these gifts and being so thrilled. And, of course, it was during the depression and so it must have been 1929. I would just have been four, but that's really my first memory, of these fantastic Christmas gifts that I got. 14 MS. WILLARD: Was that at the Gold Creek house or the one ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: The Gold Creek house, not the 11th and C Street. MS. WILLARD: Do you remember when you moved to the one at 11th and C? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, it would have been Holy Saturday and it must have been boy, that's it's really confusing because I'm not sure of the dates. All I know is that it was Holy Saturday because I was worried about the Easter bunny. And it couldn't -- it could have been in 1930, yes, um-hum, because I wouldn't have been six years old and that's the year I went to kindergarten. MS. WILLARD: And where did you go to kindergarten? MS. SCHAIBLE: In Juneau schools, Juneau Public Schools. MS. WILLARD: Was it Juneau then -- Juneau-Douglas or just Juneau? MS. SCHAIBLE: No, just Juneau. No, Douglas had its own school system and ..... MS. WILLARD: Perhaps you could explain a bit about the geography of Juneau so that it makes sense to people who don't know our state? You and I know what we're talking about. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. Juneau is on the mainland of Southeastern Alaska and Douglas is located on Douglas Island and 15 it's the site of one of the largest and richest gold mines, the Treadwell Mines. And there were two communities there, Douglas being mostly a bedroom settlement and Treadwell being the operating settlement for the gold mines. There were four gold mines that -­ very rich ore. One of the largest mines in the world at the time which was destroyed by a cave-in in April of 1917, I think. MS. WILLARD: And separated by the Gastineau Channel. MS. SCHAIBLE: Gastineau Channel, that is right. And in those days they had only ferries running between. In 1935 a bridge was built between the two communities -- not between the two communities, but between Douglas Island and Juneau. MS. WILLARD: So you were off to kindergarten at Juneau High -- or Juneau ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: I was off to kindergarten and the kindergarten was in two sessions and I think I was in the morning session. And someplace I have a picture of my classmates in that and most of us finished school together. There was only a couple of them that didn't. MS. WILLARD: How many were in your kindergarten class, do you recollect? MS. SCHAIBLE: I don't remember. I'd have to count them in the picture. I can't remember the last name of my kindergarten teacher, but her first name was Blanche. And 16 kindergarten was really wonderful because we would go in the morning and then we'd have the afternoon free to play at home. And then I went to first grade and Alice Erb was my first grade teacher and she, like most of the women teachers, was single. A lot of them had come from the Midwest, mostly from Minnesota and the Dakotas. Scandinavian backgrounds. And my mother loved to entertain them so she'd have dinner parties for the school teachers and two or three at a time and, you know, I just got to know my teachers on a social basis as well as in the classroom and I just really liked them. They were very nice. When I was in first grade I got sick in school and the nurse had to try to find out how to get me home. And I said well, my sister was in Ms. Shaw's eighth grade class and so they pulled her out of the class and she took me home. My mother immediately called the doctor and he said she has a bad case of appendicitis and I'm putting her in the hospital. And my mother said you' re not putting her in the hospital until her father gets here. And then my father came home and he said, you' re putting her in the hospital, why, and he said she needs to have her appendix out. It's ready to burst any minute now and I just want her to be in the hospital. So they put me in the hospital.

My father didn't think very much of the doctor as a surgeon so he called the Indian Health Service doctor who lived across the street from us and called him and said, will you operate on Gracie and he said yes, and so the regular family doctor 17 assisted. And, of course, I was in Saint Anne's Hospital which was the only hospital in Juneau at the time. And I was placed in a hospital bed and then we moved to surgery and Sister Mary Modeste put a mask on my face and said smell the sweet perfume. And I didn't smell any sweet perfume and the next thing I knew I was back in bed and Sister Mary Modeste came in to see me and I said you lied. And she said I did not. I said, you told me to smell the sweet perfume and there wasn't any perfume and I said it was worse than ether. And I remembered ether because I'd had my tonsils out and my adenoids so ..... MS. WILLARD: What was her response? MS. SCHAIBLE: Her response was, sort of, that's just the way of dealing with young children. Okay. Then she said we have -- what did she call it, oh, scotch broth, and would you like some scotch broth and my mother was there fortunately and I said I don't know what scotch broth is and my mother said Grace, it's bouillon with barley. Okay, I'll try it. And then she said we have some custard and I said I don't know what custard is. I don't want custard. And my mother said blanc mange. Oh, that's sounds good, so that was what I was given to eat. And Sister Mary Modeste was not very happy that I had to have everything explained to me in a different language. MS. WILLARD: Did your parents teach you Norwegian or Swedish? 18 MS. SCHAIBLE: No, that was their secret language and that brings another story. My mother recognized that I was having problems because my parents spoke with an accent. And she said, you're always talking about Mrs. Nordling, who was the mother of one of my friends, who speaks such beautiful English and I said yeah, she does, she doesn't speak with an accent. And my mother said tell me how many languages she speaks? And I said well, she speaks English and my mother said oh, and how many languages do I speak. I said well, you speak Norwegian and Swedish and English with an accent. And my mother looked at me and said I also speak German without an accent. And oh, that was a great awakening to me that people that spoke with accents often spoke more than one language and they -­ but they never taught us to speak Norwegian or Swedish because they were afraid we'd end up with an accent and it's not true. Children who learn languages at a tender age speak both languages without an accent. I do have the Scandinavian lilt to my voice and it's very recognizable by linguists, but I don't have any accent per se, so -- and I wouldn't have an accent if I'd learned_ the language when I was a child. MS. WILLARD: In school, in your first two or three years, did you have any close friends that you remember? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, we were all playmates and the neighborhood playmates. Betty Nordling lived just down the street 19 from me. Lois Allen and Nathan Skinner and, you know, it was a mixture of my sister's and brother's friends and my friends in all the age groups. And one thing that bound us together in the summertime, except for my brother, was that friends who lived down the street had a very large cabin out at Auke Bay, 14 miles out of Juneau, and what they would do is pool the neighborhood kids and send them out there with one mother a week and so my sister and I would go and all the neighborhood kids went. And there were actually four families that did this together. And the older girls went and did their own thing. The younger kids were kept fairly carefully supervised. And then on the turnover day, I think, which was a Saturday, another mother would come out with food and all the things she needed for a week and the other mother would go home. And that we used that for two or three, maybe four summers before I got to go to Girl Scout Camp. MS. WILLARD: So you spent the entire summer out at Auke Bay ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Um-hum. (Affirmative) MS. WILLARD: ..... which is north of Juneau? MS. SCHAIBLE: North of Juneau and there were two boats there for us to use and the older kids could use the round bottom dory and the younger kids could use the flat bottomed row boat. 20 Nathan and I went out in the round bottom and we forgot what day it was and so we were out fishing. And Nathan caught a salmon quite early in our experience and that salmon pulled us all over Auke Bay which is a very large bay and we just tired him out and then had to row home. And we got back to the summer place, in a little cove and I saw walking down the steps my father. And I was in the round bottom dory and we had a salmon and my father said, you know, you're over 10 years old, I can't paddle you, but I wish I could. And he took the salmon and weighed it and it was a 42 pound King. So my father said, your mother is going to enjoy having this. I'll fillet the whole salmon and you'll have salmon fillets for several days, which was nice. There were about eight -- eight or ten of us at the time and it was great fun. I really loved the summer vacations out at that cabin. The people remained close friends of mine all through school and then we all went different ways and ..... MS. WILLARD: In the area of grades one through seven, were you participating in any clubs in school or sports activities? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, we didn't have clubs in elementary school and in fourth grade well, let me tell you. Everyone wanted me to skip second grade because I had learned to read when I was three. My sister was tired of reading to me and so she taught me how to read. And my father thought it was important, 21 being a master carpenter, that I know a little math, so he taught me how to add, subtract, multiply and divide. So, in first grade, I was bored to tears and then I was out for six weeks with my appendicitis and the school said we don't think it's wise for you to skip her and my first grade teacher just almost cried because she knew I was not going to enjoy second grade at all and so I went to second grade. I'll never forget her name. Violet Burget was my teacher. And we did not get along, did not get along at all. And, I had missed so much school in first grade, I was bound and determined not to miss anything in second grade. And I'd never been tardy. I was sitting at my desk one morning and we had desks of slanting top and my pencil rolled off, went on the floor, I bent down to pick it up and she called me tardy because I wasn't sitting with my hands clasped in front of me at my desk. And when she said you're tardy because you don't have your hands on your desk. And I said, but I'm here, how can I be tardy? And she just told me, sort of, shut up and I was not one bit happy about that. And I went home and I told my mother that they're going -- I'm going to be called tardy and I wasn't tardy and she said it's your battle and okay, I chose not to make a battle of it. I accepted being tardy. I think I did miss a few days of school because of illness, but it was a teacher that I thought was so unfair and I said, I should have skipped second grade. 22 The next year I had an absolutely fabulous teacher, Donie Taylor, a very beautiful woman, very lovely woman and she enjoyed teaching and was so fair to students and I just thought she was marvelous. She later married a mining engineer and ended up in the Philippines at the outbreak of the Second World War and she and her husband were both interned at Santa Tomas. She came back to visit Juneau after the war and we all could hardly wait to see her because she was just such a lovely, lovely person.

My fourth grade teacher was Mary Kolasa. And her sister Etta Mae Kolasa was the assistant city clerk. And she was, sort of, a girlfriend of one of the bright young men that my father had hired part time in the summer as a dump truck driver, but they -­ nothing ever came of that, but he later, that dump truck driver, married Virginia Berg which is another story which I'll mention later. But fifth grade became a little problem because then we started having different teachers for different subjects and the coach, I think, the basketball coach for the seventh and eighth graders ended up being the teacher of hygiene and there weren't enough textbooks and so I was supposed to share a textbook with a classmate, but he wouldn't share. So I was having quite a problem trying to figure out what the assignments were and I told my mother I just didn't think it was fair that I ended up with a classmate who wouldn't share the text. 23

My mother said maybe this is my battle and she talked to the teacher and the teacher said I have no control over it and my mother went to the principal and said, my daughter doesn't have a textbook or access to a textbook because the classmate won't share. The principal said we'll get her a textbook and they did. That was the major thing of fifth grade. Sixth grade I don't remember. It's just a blah year. Seventh grade we got an extremely handsome man as our teacher. First man teacher that we had and, of course, all the women, all the girls, sat there just all - all the time. He was a very nice man. Later he was an attorney and practiced in Alaska for a very short time. MS. WILLARD: What was his name? MS. SCHAIBLE: Jerry McLaughlin. And he married a local girl. One of the teachers who had been absent for a period of time came back to teach art and music and yeah, mostly art because we still had the same music teacher. I took up the clarinet in the fourth grade not because I wanted to, but because they wouldn't teach me the oboe. I just didn't want to play the clarinet, but I did play the clarinet through grade school. And in the sixth grade I also started again with piano lessons. I had a series of teachers with health problems and had stayed away from the piano for a while and a teacher in the Douglas schools started private lessons. A remarkable man. And so I went back on the sixth - I think it was in the sixth grade, maybe the 24 seventh, but I played in the band and the orchestra and things like that and really didn't like playing clarinet. Lou Williams. Lou Williams who grew up in Juneau, his father was the Secretary of Alaska and they later moved to Wrangell and then to Ketchikan. Lou Williams played the clarinet and we talk about it every now and then. MS. WILLARD: Perhaps you could explain who Lou Williams is? MS. SCHAIBLE: Lou Williams was the publisher of the Ketchikan Chronicle? MS. WILLARD: Daily News.

MS. SCHAIBLE: Daily News. I can 1 t remember the names of the newspapers. They also had the Wrangell paper for a while. And he was the publisher and very conservative Republican who, I think, was on the Board of Governors -- Board of Governors of the State Bar Association and he was a regent, I think, of the University in addition. And I used to run into him occasionally in Anchorage, never saw him in Ketchikan the times I was there. Well, that takes care of some of the people that played. Jim Wilcox, who was one of the early sufferers of polio, also played the clarinet. His father -- they moved from Juneau to Fairbanks where his father became the Dean of the School of Mines.

And Jim, I think - - I don 1 t know where he graduated from high school, not in Juneau, but maybe here in Fairbanks, but then he 25 went Outside to school and became an engineer. And was the engineer for the City of Fairbanks for quite a while. MS. WILLARD: You might explain what is important about Fairbanks in terms of our universities. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes. The flagship campus of the University statewide system is located in Fairbanks. In 1915 James Wickersham, who was our delegate to Congress as a territory, provided for a land grant and it was in the Fairbanks area and they selected a site on what was known as College Hill. And in 1917 the territorial legislature created the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines and started - they didn't start building, they provided some funding for one or two buildings on the campus. In 1921 the Board of Regents of the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines selected Charles Bunnell as its first president. Charles Bunnell had come to Alaska as a school teacher in Kodiak at the turn of the century and later studied law under an apprenticeship system and moved to Valdez, and Valdez then being the headquarters of the Third Judicial Division, division versus district, became the territorial district judge there. With the change of administration he was not reappointed, and he was not a good friend of Wickersham who was our delegate in Congress, so he practiced law in Valdez until he was offered the position of president of the University. The college opened in 1922 and they had one graduate John Shanley who had had three years of college elsewhere and came up 26 here to make his fortune and decided that he better get that degree which he did. And then they had one graduate the next year who was a woman Mardy Murie who is famous as an environmentalist. But the University -- in 1935 it became the University of Alaska and remained as the only University in the state for a number of years until in the '50s when I think Ketchikan was the first of the community colleges and then Anchorage. And they were -- both of those were incorporated into the University system over a period of time. And, of course, the Anchorage -- the University of Alaska-Anchorage is the largest of the institutions now and it is a very typical college. The University of Alaska-Fairbanks is a little different in that it is a research university and has a great number of non-traditional students on the main campus. The system is really very wide spread. MS. WILLARD: And, of course, the University of Alaska-Fairbanks is famous for its School of Mines. MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, it was, it was famous for its School of Mines. It's not any more. You know, mining engineers are -- petroleum engineers are at a premium. Regular engineers are at a less of a premium and its faculty changed over the years so that you don't have the -- I shouldn't say top drawer, but you don't have the same quality of faculty that you had in the '30s, '40s and '50s. 27 MS. WILLARD: Perhaps this would be a good point to break for lunch and give your voice a bit of a rest. MS. SCHAIBLE: That would be nice. (off record) (On record) MS. WILLARD: If my math is correct, we're in an era where you're in grade school and the Depression is ongoing in America. Could you tell me what effect that had, if anything? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, actually when the Depression started I was very young and didn't seem to be affected by it a great deal looking at it in retrospect. I do remember one year during the Depression that Christmas was delayed. The ship hadn't arrived from Seattle with Christmas gifts and so we didn't have Christmas on Christmas Day. It was maybe four or five days later. It didn't make a great impression on me except that it seemed very strange to have a tree without presents under it at Christmas time. I know that things were bad elsewhere because we would hear from friends who had moved away from Alaska, but actually I don't think it affected us because we lived a partial subsistence life to begin with and ..... MS. WILLARD: Explain what we mean when we talk about subsistence life ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Subsistence is that you're living off the land. And my father was a very good hunter, as was my uncle and my brother and we had large quantities of venison. Sitka Black 28 Tail deer is something special, found mostly in Southeastern Alaska, but now it's been introduced other places, but we had a lot of venison.

My father loved mountain goat and we had lots of mountain goat meat and actually my mother would get liver from the grocery store -- I mean, from the butcher free because he said no one buys liver. In fact, I always have to throw it away if I can't get Mrs. Berg there to take it and so we always had fresh calf liver free.

And, of course, we had large quantities of seafood. We had halibut because my uncle was a halibut fisherman. We had salmon because everybody in the family fished and we didn't have -­ we had lots of Dungeness crab. We didn't have a great deal of King crab, but we had lots of Dungeness crab. Later on, after the worst of the Depression was over, my uncle started bringing in scallops. He used to throw them away because there was no market for them and I persuaded him to bring them in and my father bought a deep fryer so that we could have deep fried scallops, and we always had shrimp. The shrimp cannery in Petersburg was owned by a family friend and every month we got a five pound can of shrimp. It was an ordinary normal thing. My father paid him annually for the shrimp and we just lived on really things that came from the area. The mine, of course, was still operating. It continued to operate. The Alaska Juneau Gold Mine. It continued to operate 29 until 1942 when the government shutdown all gold mines and so there was steady employment at the gold mine. The halibut fishery was still very important in Juneau because the cold storage was so good and every -- practically everybody had a locker at the cold storage to keep things frozen rather than canning or something.

My mother did a lot of canning of meat. She'd make wonderful Swedish meatballs and can them using venison and goat. In the summer she bought crates of fruits and home canned peaches and apricots and plums and we had all that home canned. My father built a cool room in our basement so that she had a place to store all of her wonderful canned goods. Of course, we all berry picked in the summertime and we had blueberries, huckleberries, currants, nagoon berries, cloud berries that we picked. And once a summer we used to go to Strawberry Point which is now know as Gustavus and picked the wild strawberries there. We'd always go to Berners Bay to get our nagoon berries and we just traveled around and picked berries wherever we could find them.

And my mother would make cloud berry sauce, blueberry sauce. We had canned blueberry juice in the years when the blueberries were good so we had lots and lots of that. So during the Depression we lived very well in Southeastern Alaska and I think most of the people did. The Native people stayed with their native foods. They didn't even know there 30 was a Depression on, so my memories of the Depression are not of being deprived of anything. MS. WILLARD: You mentioned that you were in the band in grade school, did you have any other extra curricular activities? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes. Well, Girl Scouts. I was an active Girl Scout and I think I went to Girl Scout camp two or three years, probably two years. I know one year I had to leave early because I got blisters on my heel that got infected and I had to leave the camp early, but that was - Girl Scouts kept us busy. I started taking piano lessens, I think it was in the seventh grade. I had piano lessons as a very young child and as they say I drove one of my piano teachers to madness to the mental hospital that Alaskans called Morningside in Portland, Oregon, but the other one suffered from ill health and had to leave after just a couple of years and then I waited a long time.

My parents didn't really care for the remaining music teacher, thought that well, she just didn't encourage the students because they she thought they would be competitors to

her own children who were all very musically inclined. My parents thought that was kind of ridiculous and so I waited until a new music teacher came. And then worked out a deal with him, before I got to high school I know, that if I could quit clarinet I'd take organ lessons. 31

He was a better organist than he was a pianist, but he was still a very good pianist and a wonderful teacher and so I started taking organ lessons from him. And it was a problem trying to find an organ for me to practice on. I had my own piano, but we didn't have an organ at home and finally Dean Rice of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Juneau permitted me to use their organ for practice as long as I had only the light over the organ so I could see the music. He lived across the street and he used to come in and listen to me practice. Scared the living daylights out of me because I had only the light over the organ and he'd come in the main door and I couldn't see. It was all black, but it was very kind of him to let me do it and it gave me an opportunity when I was in college to be able to be an accompanist to singers who wouldn't have had any other organist available as they performed in churches. MS. WILLARD: During those years was your father still working for the mine? MS. SCHAIBLE: No. In 1935 he joined with another builder in territorial construction and they won the contract to build the Juneau airport for Pacific Alaska Airways which was a subsidiary of Pan American Airways. They were going to keep up the partnership to build schools in the interior of Alaska and my mother said wait a minute, I'm not moving north and so they broke it up 32 And at that time my father joined in with another man and formed a construction company and that broke apart very quickly because the man was a drunk and my father found out the hard way. And then he set up his own company, 1939, Berg Construction which at the time my brother finally closed it down was the oldest corporate construction company in Alaska. He just did all kinds of things with that company. And he never really retired, although my brother was responsible for the majority of the work that they were doing. My father went in and became foreman occasionally, but he never really retired. MS. WILLARD: When did your brother effectively take over the business? MS. SCHAIBLE: When?

MS. WILLARD: Yes. MS. SCHAIBLE: After the Second World War. He had been drafted and he was based at the camp in Juneau and then his unit was sent to the Aleutians. And he had been urged to go to officer's candidate school and he said no. No, I don't want to do that, I don't want to be an officer. And after a year in the Aleutians he said I think I'll go to officer's candidate school and so they sent him to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and he came out as a shave tail. The Army was building air fields in the South Pacific and he ended up building the first air strip on Okinawa. And was based principally in the Philippines, but then Okinawa and when he came 33 home after the war he went back to work for the company and it must have been maybe 10 years later that my father said okay, you run the company. I'll help, but you run it. MS. WILLARD: I take it from what you said your brother went right from high school graduation to work for his dad?

MS. SCHAIBLE: No. My father said you've got to go to college. You've got to go to college and my brother said I'm not going to college. I'm just not going to college. And so my father said what are you going to do and my brother said I'm going to a decent engineering school in Portland, Oregon which he did. And he and a friend of his both went to the same school and they learned more about motors than they ever needed to know, but he loved it and came back. And from that he started working for the company, running heavy equipment. MS. WILLARD: What about your sister in terms of further education? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, after she graduated from high school and this is still -- you know, it's almost the end of the Depression as far as we knew it in Alaska but finding money to go to college wasn't easy so my sister took a job at the local laundry which was owned by family friends and she worked there for two years. And in the meantime she had saved enough money to go to college. Well, she discovered she had a serious eye problem and so she was referred to an opthamologist in Portland and was able to live with a family friend in Portland and work with this 34 opthamologist until her vision was saved basically. And then she enrolled at the University of Washington and she decided to become a nurse. The professions weren't really open to women in the late '30s and - - but nursing was. Her great ambition was to be a stewardess for the airlines and that went by the boards when she

11 found out that she was 5' 9 , that she was too tall and she couldn't be a stewardess, but she went on to become a nurse. And she met a very nice man. He was the first non-Greek to be elected student body president at the University of Washington. MS. WILLARD: By non-Greek, you mean non-fraternity? MS. SCHAIBLE: Non-fraternity, yes. And he had a deferred chance to join the military so that he could graduate from the university. He was the captain of the ROTC, in addition to being student body president and then he was sent to the Mojave Desert and my sister went down and they got married. She followed him around before he was sent overseas and then she came home. Well, she finished her nursing degree and then came home. She just had one quarter left to do. The nursing school at the University of Washington is a five year program and it requires clerkships and so she clerked at every kind of medical institution including mental hospitals and.prisons and things like that. MS. WILLARD: You mentioned your summers at Auke Bay and you've described a couple of Christmas incidents. What, sort 35 of, social activities did you family engage in other than what you've told us about? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, one of the things that - after Girl Scouts, I became a Rainbow Girl which is part of the Masonic organization. My father was a master carpenter and a master mason, but he was a thirty-third degree Mason and a Shriner and my mother was an Eastern Star member. My sister had been a Rainbow Girl. My brother refused to join the DeMolay. He said, that's kid stuff and just wouldn't do it, but we had -- Rainbow was a big activity for me. I didn't have trouble memorizing things in those days and so I memorized all my rituals and went through the chairs, as they say, and became the Worthy Advisor and a delegate to our Grand Assembly which was held in Wenatchee, Washington. I went there to help a friend of mine become most Worthy Grand Advisor. MS. WILLARD: Would that have been your first trip outside of Alaska? MS. SCHAIBLE: No. No, my first trip was - well, what had happened was, my father really wanted to take the family back to the Old Country and he had been sending money back to . Norway for years so that we would have plenty of money to spend when we went. 1938 we were supposed to go. And 1938 my father got a huge contract to build 12 bridges. It wasn't his contract to build the 12. It was his contract to build six and as soon as he was halfway through the six 36 they added four more, so he had 10 bridges to build or 12. I can't remember how many there were. They were all out in the Eagle River Valley, way north of town. He had this contract and he said it was just impossible for him to leave. He had no one that was capable of running the job. And my brother was not capable at that point I'm sure to run a job that size. So we put it off and my father said well, next year and that's about the time they decided to have the extra bridges built and so we couldn't go and my father said next year. Well, this is 1938 so he said to my mother that she was to take me and my sister on a trip by bus. We were going to visit San Francisco which was celebrating -- I can't remember what it was called. It was at Treasure Island and it was devoted to the Pacific. And then we were going to visit friends in Phoenix and then we were going to Flagstaff and then to the Grand Canyon and we were going to the Carlsbad Caverns. Then we were going to Colorado Springs and someplace in Utah and Yellowstone and back to Seattle and then back home. It was a big trip planned. And so we went to Seattle, my mother and I and we met my sister who was a student at the University of Washington and started our bus trip. We stopped in Tacoma long enough to see the house where I was born and then Portland to visit friends. And then to San Francisco where we spent a lot of time. It was the Golden Gate Exposition honoring the finishing of the Golden Gate Bridge. 37 And there I had my first taste of authentic Chinese food and I fell in love with it. Thought it was absolutely marvelous. Bought my mother a Chinese cookbook and she said she would learn how to cook Chinese and she did, but then we went to -- we did a tour of Chinatown and I met Chin Wa Lee who had a role in the Good Earth and I was just absolutely fascinated by him and we just had a really good time. Then we went to visit friends who lived north of San Diego and stayed with them and it was my first introduction to snakes. I had never seen a snake before and I saw a rattlesnake and I almost died. And, of course, they wanted me to go hiking and I said no. And they wanted me to go horseback riding and I said no. And it was the first time I had really fresh corn and I ate a lot of corn. And then we went to San Diego to visit the son of friends of ours who was in aviation school in San Diego learning to fly.

Then we went to Phoenix. We had intended to spend a couple of days in Phoenix, but it was 108 degrees, or something like that, and my mother said we're not going to survive. She made arrangements for us to catch a special night bus to Flagstaff where it's cooler so we boarded the bus. Fifteen miles out of Flagstaff two buses were traveling in tandem -- and the first bus stopped to pick up people. Our bus driver fell asleep and rammed into the first bus and sent it scooting across the field, left us halfway there. 38 And I was the only uninjured person on the two buses and my mother and my sister were both badly injured and my mother pulled herself together and said you need to get off the bus and find somebody to help you turn off the engine. She said I don't know what's going to happen. I mean, we might catch fire and now you just need to do it and she said, see if you can go out the front. Well, I couldn't. The whole front of our bus was completely smashed in. The driver of our bus was hanging over the wheel totally unconscious and all the people in the first three rows had both legs broken just below the knee. And I got out of the bus and the emerg- ..... MS. WILLARD: How old were you, Grace? MS. SCHAIBLE: I was 14 -- 13, 13 I guess. No, 1939 -- '38, yes, I was 13. It was before I was 14. And I got out of the bus and I opened the panel to turn off the engine and I wasn't sure I was going to do it right so I ran to get the driver of the other bus and he barely made it over to help me get that engine turned off. The first bus had stopped at a farm house to pick up passengers to take into Phoenix, and because I was uninjured they thought everybody in my family was fine and I said no, no, my sister's face is all banged up. My mother is in great pain because she thinks she has broken ribs, which she did, and so we were one of the last people to be picked up. It was a Forest Service man. 39 He had a station wagon and we were able to get my mother and sister comfortably into this station wagon and he took us directly to the hospital. They found a bed for my sister because she was really a mess. Her face was all banged up. And after a couple of hours they found a bed for my mother and at that point I laid down under the bed. There was no other place for me. The hospital was totally full. And there were some people lying on gurneys in the hallway, people in that first bus who weren't badly injured. Five people died in the crash. It happened to be a slow news day in Juneau and they carried a story about my mother and my sister being in this bus wreck where five people had been killed and one was missing. I wasn't mentioned. We didn't know that was happening and my mother said, you've got to get a hold of your father. Well, how do -­ what do I do? Where am I? How do I do this, I just didn't know. And finally the doctor said that he would take me to the hotel where we had reservations. He took me to the hotel and explained to them the circumstances and that everything was going to be okay and so I went to the hotel with the doctor and was terrified being in a hotel by myself, but I finally got up the courage to ask where the telegraph office was. I went and sent a telegram to my father and told him that I was there. The hospital was quite a distance but I learned to ~alk to the hospital. 40

And the next day my mother said, there's a man and wife who are going to be coming to take you to the events of the pow-wow. The all Indian pow-wow with 10,000 Indians arriving in Flagstaff which had a population of about 3,000 at that time. And sure enough it turned out to be Ernie Pyle and his wife. They asked me if I wanted to go to the rodeo and I said no, thank you, I've seen enough blood to last me a lifetime. And they said well, how about the Indian dances and I said yes, I'd love to go to that. So for two nights they took me to the Indian dances. And we stayed in touch for a little bit after that, not much, but he did write a column about my sister and my mother meeting them and that they had taken the missing daughter to the dances. MS. WILLARD: What an introduction to the Outside! MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes, it was. It was quite an introduction. And then, of course, we had planned to go to the Grand Canyon and we had the cheapest hotel rooms they had in the Eltovar Hotel at the Grand Canyon. The bus company said no, no, no, if you're going there you have to have the best and so they paid for our hotel room at the Grand Canyon and then arranged for us to come back to Flagstaff to catch the train that would take us back to Seattle. MS. WILLARD: What were your initial impressions of the Outside after being brought up in Juneau? How many people were in Juneau in that era? 41 MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, probably 5,000. It was the biggest city in Alaska and Fairbanks, I think, was second, Anchorage third, Kodiak fourth -- no, maybe Ketchikan. MS. WILLARD: Or Ketchikan, I bet.

MS . SCHAIBLE: Ketchikan may have been second, Fairbanks third. MS. WILLARD: Yes. MS. SCHAIBLE: Anchorage fourth, Kodiak fifth, something like that. MS. WILLARD: I was asking you about your impressions going Outside from ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Wel 1, of course, we arrived in Seattle on an Alaska steam ship vessel and had a wonderful time traveling south and we got to the hotel_ that my father knew the owner of, the Gulman Hotel on Second Avenue right across from Linda Washington Hotel. And the first thing my mother said was we're going to the Pike Street Market and we went to the Pike Street Market and ended up buying fresh fruit and bringing it back to the hotel. And as we walked into the hotel Harry Gulman said the tray is in your room with all of the utensils and the napkins so we took our fresh fruit up and just gorged on fresh fruit. Practically got sick we ate so much. And then my sister joined us and she took us to a restaurant that was, sort of, a hangout of college kids in downtown Seattle and I had my first taste of chess pie which was very nice. 42

My sister arranged for me to go to a movie. Not that we didn't have movies in Juneau, we did, but we usually got the first run pictures a year late and so she took me to a movie to see Pygmalion and I knew the story of Pygmalion. I know George Bernard Shaw's writings and so it was absolutely wonderful to see Wendy Hiller play. And it was just a totally wonderful experience, but it wasn't anything so terribly different from Juneau, except I got to see a first run film. Then, our getting on the bus. I wasn't used

to buses. We had a couple of tour buses in Juneau that used to take people out to see the Mendenhall Glacier which is a big tourist attraction in Juneau even now, but I'd see these smelly buses and they if I happened to be at Fagerstrom' s pond swimming they always had to stop the bus and I was usually swimming with Lois Allen and we always had to answer the stupid questions. Fagerstrom's pond was right across the road from a fox farm and we'd have people ask us how many times a year do they skin the foxes. And why is the glacier so dirty and the answer was for the glacier well, this is not the year that we have the tourists

clean the glacier. We provide them with the brushes to clean the glacier. It was always great fun to be out there in the summertime as the tour buses were going by, but I was never on a tour bus and then suddenly I was on Greyhound and had a little difficulty getting used to it. 43

The buses smelled bad. And later my husband explained to me what they called engines, locomotives, in South Africa and that was stinkezel. Stink donkeys, so -- and those buses were stink donkeys. Oh, they didn't smell good at all. And, they'd turn off the bus when the passengers talked to us kids, but when you're riding in them you really do -- it was the smells that made a big difference. And the noise. I mean, Juneau was a fairly quiet town and a quiet place to live. The most startling thing that made everybody nervous was when the emergency siren went off in the mine indicating that there had been a problem in the mine and then everybody was on edge.

My father didn't work in the mine and -- but friends of mine, friends had fathers who were working in the mine and it was always, what's going on and what part of the mine was affected and which miners are on duty and -- but other than that it was a very quiet town and the noise in the cities was just unreal. I had an opportunity when I was a student at the University to serve as a guide for a couple who had come from Barter Island. Their first time in Fairbanks and, of course, I was asking them their impressions of coming into the city and they said the smell. And they said even you smell. And I thought, oh, boy, did I forget to wear deodorant and they said no, but everybody smells in your town, and I thought, oh, well, you don't smell yourself. 44 MS. WILLARD: Maybe you can explain where Barter Island is? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, Barter Island is a small community located on an island off the coast of Northern Alaska. It is the island that is opposite the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but in any event my impressions of the Outside world, as we called it, was not great. Speaking of Outside, we always had talked about the two sides of Alaska, outside and inside. Then we added Morningside, which was the mental hospital in Portland, and then the anthropology professor at the University added homicide and suicide, so we had the five sides of Alaska. MS. WILLARD: Was your family, or your mother and father, at all involved in politics? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, local politics were a subject of discussion every night at the dinner table. It was -- well, it was just a normal thing for us to talk about what we going on in

the community and what was going on in the territory. We knew most of the people. Alaska in territorial days was such a different place. Kids going Outside to college would get on a ship wherever they lived. They started at Nome and picked up students going Outside to college. They'd pick up students in Unalaska. They'd pick up students in Seward and Cordova, Skagway. Not very often at Haines, but at Skagway, Juneau, Petersburg, Wrangell, Ketchikan. And by 45 the time they got to Seattle they were all good buddies and you just knew about everybody.

I didn't know people, but I knew about them. We had a saying in territorial days that A. H. Ziegler, a very prominent attorney in Ketchikan, would sneeze and Charlie Jones, a very prominent politician in Nome, would catch the cold or Charlie Jones would open a bag of Rice Krispies and A.H. Ziegler in Ketchikan would say Charlie, that's an awful lot of noise. So it was just this kind of thing, where everybody knew everybody else. MS. WILLARD: Yes. In fact we're so huge in land mass, but it's a small ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: In population, yes. I mean, .... MS. WILLARD: . .. . . community. MS. SCHAIBLE: ..... there were 70,000 people when I was in third or fourth grade, half of those were indigenous people, Eskimos, Indians, the Aleuts and the Alutiqs. And I had the great advantage of knowing most of the people in the Native community in

Juneau. My father was the first contractor to hire Natives to work. The principal of the Indian school in Juneau was the mother of one of my very close friends and Lois had to go - this was Lois Allen, very good friend, Lois had to go to all of the school functions. She didn't like being the only Caucasian in the room and so she'd drag me along and as a result I got to know these kids long before they were ever permitted to go to our schools and 46 it seemed a very normal thing to have friends in the Native community, different from a lot of kids that grew up in Juneau. They didn't have the same opportunity that I had. MS. WILLARD: The Legislature, of course, the territorial Legislature sat in Juneau. What effect, if any, do you recollect about its activities? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes, yes, I remember very distinctly. I must have been in fourth or maybe fifth grade. I don't think it was third grade, but I would go after school to the Legislature. They sat in the federal building which was right across from the school I was going to and I usually went into the Senate because there I could sort the people ou~ a lot better than I could in the House because I didn't know as many of them by name, but in the Senate I knew them by name. And there was a legislator from Livengood, Fourth Judicial Division and his name -- I don't know what his real name was, but he was called Alabam Blanteau and he always wore a stovepipe hat, sometimes in session. And when I would go into the gallery he'd turn around and tip his hat at me. And I just thought he was an absolutely fabulous person. And so I used to go to Legislative session occasionally just to see what was going on and then we'd talk about what was happening at home.

My father did run for the City Council one time and was defeated. He was close friends with Isadore Goldstein who was the Mayor of Juneau a couple of times and, they were just one Jewish 47 family like there was one Negro family, one black family in Juneau at the time and the Goldsteins, of course, own the Goldstein building in Juneau which was the largest office/apartment building. And they were also furriers, so and Isadore had a ship's chandler shop, but politics were there. The only thing is my parents were very staunch conservative Republicans. And I'm not sure that I agreed with my parents. We had across the street the -- I don't think he was called the Commissioner of Labor, but he was anyway the head of the Labor Department, an elected position and was a very staunch Democrat. He started talking politics to me and he convinced me that I really was a Democrat and not a Republican, even though I came from a Republican family and so that was quite a disappointment for my family that I became a Democrat. I think that my father used to complain about Democrats and then he started not complaining about them in my presence so that we wouldn't end up in arguments, but politics, yes. Politics generally was a topic that my parents thought was important to talk about. MS. WILLARD: And, I think, I heard somewhere a story about geography. You doing something with the map of the world or a globe?

MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes, yes. My father wanted -- he didn't really have the same time for my brother and sister that he did for me and so one of the things that he bought me was a globe. And he encouraged me to collect stamps and the globe was a testing 48 system. He'd spin the globe and have his finger land -- if it didn't land in the middle of the Pacific or the Atlantic I had to tell him some facts about the country that he landed on. And that meant spending a lot of time not necessarily with the Britannica, but I think it was the Book of Knowledge that I just had to keep it. And the Book of Knowledge incidently was a gift from James Wickersham. MS. WILLARD: Why don't you talk a bit about James so that he's ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. James Wickersham was a man who was appointed as a territorial judge at Eagle, Alaska which was then the headquarters of the Fourth Judicial Division. And ..... MS. WILLARD: And Eagle is up on the Yukon River. MS. SCHAIBLE: Eagle is on the Yukon. It's the closest cornrnuni ty in Alaska to the Yukon Territory. And Wickersham was appointed as the territorial district judge and moved to Eagle. Gold was discovered in the Fairbanks area. Fairbanks was growing. Eagle was dying and so Wickersham moved the whole court system to here, to Fairbanks, and about the same time there was the major scandal of the territorial judge in Nome who was involved in various nefarious schemes I would say. And Judge Wickersham was asked to go over and solve all the problems which he did. Carne back to Fairbanks ran for territorial delegate and I can't remember what year. It must have been 1914 and I think -- I'm not sure he was elected that time, but 49 he may have been. I can't remember. But he and Sutherland, Dan Sutherland, fought over the territorial delegate's job and a couple of times Sutherland was declared the winner and then served the full term and then delegate Wickersham was declared the winner by the courts and he got paid as well as Sutherland being paid so but he ran in 1930 and was elected delegate again after the hiatus. And then was defeated by Tony Dimond in 1932. Came back to Juneau, bought Bart Thane's old house. Bart Thane being the man who started the Alaska Gastineau Mining Company at Thane, Alaska and he bought that house. And he called my father and said this house has no 1 ibrary in it . I want you to come and build my library so my father said I'm busy. And Wickersham said that's not the answer I want to hear and so my father went and built the library for Wickersham, but the library wasn't big enough for all the books so Wickersham said, Mr. Berg, you have children, would you like to have some books and my father said yes, I would. They loved books, all of them. So my father came home with the Book of Knowledge. He came home with the History of the Peoples of the World. And I can't remember, there were a couple of other series that I didn't use, but the Book of Knowledge I used a lot and the History of the Peoples of the World I just devoured. It was absolutely fabulous. The only thing is that licking my fingers to turn the pages because it was India paper, sort of ruined the books, but I remember 50 reading those things and they were all major studies of all the cultures of the world. Just absolutely fabulous books. Thanking Judge Wickersham was - - no way I could ever thank him enough for giving me that library. MS. WILLARD: And so you used at least the Book of Knowledge when your dad was testing you on ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes. Well, that was one thing. I started reading. Albania, I think, was probably the first country and I proceeded all the way through to Zanzibar, but I learned a tremendous amount just, sort of, reading the Book of Knowledge about all these countries so that I could give 10 facts wherever that finger landed. MS. WILLARD: How long did this continue? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, it continued until, I think, he got tired of it and I got tired of it, probably a couple of years. MS. WILLARD: During those early grade school days what were your marks like in school? MS. SCHAIBLE: They were good. Yes, they were very good. I don't remember. The only thing I ever remember about grammar school is the fact that I was called tardy in second grade. MS. WILLARD: What was the name of the grammar school, by the way, was it just Juneau School or Juneau Elementary? MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes, it was called the Juneau Public School. 51 MS. WILLARD: Do you recollect anything during those years that made any impression on you with respect to the difference between men and women or any different treatment of one as opposed to the other? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, because my sister was enough older, she had a harder time dealing with the gender gap and she wasn't encouraged by my father the same way as I was. My father really wanted me to be an architect. Well, I couldn't draw a straight line with a ruler because my thumb always got in the way so I knew that wasn't going to be my career -- and I really wanted to teach at the college level. Well, first I wanted to be a diplomat and then I wanted to teach at the college level, but my father said, you could be anything you want. There is no limit to what you can do and don't let people tell you otherwise. If you want to be a mining engineer, you can be a mining engineer. If you want to be a doctor, you can be a doctor. You don't have to be a nurse. You can be a doctor if you want to be a doctor. Well, I wanted to be a diplomat and he thought that was pretty fancy, but he didn't discourage me and I found out on my own that I didn't want to be one. When I was a junior in college I discovered that there was a tremendous discrimination against women in the foreign service. There was one woman in 1947 and she was assigned to Nepal in the consular service, not in the foreign service, and I thought that was pretty, pretty drastic when you 52 have one woman. And she came from a very wealthy family, had gone to all the right schools. I didn't come from a wealthy family and the Juneau High School isn't exactly one of the stellar schools in the United States, but it's a good school. It was a good school and gave me good grounding, but as I told my father later, Dad, you're not rich enough, you're not rich enough, you don't come from the right part of the country. I could never be a diplomat and we both laughed about ·it. MS. WILLARD: Did you -- obviously you had an eye opening when you were looking into the diplomat service, but did you ever perceive any of that in Juneau when you were a kid? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, the professions that were opened for women in Juneau were nursing and teaching and it wasn't until later that it became a lot e~sier and so at the time I went to law school it was just a snap for any woman to do anything. We

had women doctors by that time. We had a few women lawyers, not many, but a few in Alaska and I do think that by the time of the end of the second World War women's status really changed as far as professional careers were concerned. There had never been discrimination against women in the traditional sense. I thought that Alaska was basically free of that because there were never enough women and we were always prized. There was a time when it was difficult for women to do anything but be a nurse or a teacher. 53 MS. WILLARD: What was your mother's attitude toward higher education? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, encouraged it. She just believed that -- she would have loved to have gone on in Sweden to higher education. That was not a possibility for her. Her father was a graduate of Upsala University, one of the premier schools in Sweden, and she would have loved to have done that, but there was no way. And she blamed her step-mother and I blame her father, so I don't -- if her father had really insisted on it she could have gone because there was enough money in the family that she could have gone on. There wasn't a lot, but there was enough which is unlike my father's family. There's no way he could go to college. MS. WILLARD: But he clearly at some point did not come out of that experience either resentful of his children doing it or particularly a female member. He ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, no, no, no. And my sister's choice was her own. I mean, she wanted to be a nurse and it was really hard for her when she discovered that she could no longer practice as a nurse. When she was married and living in California even though she was a psychiatric nurse, a specialist, by the time she paid to get to the hospital, paid for babysitters, the additional money put them in a different bracket and cost them to do it and it was very hard for her to give it up. And when she moved back to Alaska for a few years in Kenai she volunteered doing all kinds of things that only nurses 54 can do and -- but she couldn't work. She was busy entertaining Chevron people, but it was hard for her to give it up because it meant so much to her to be a nurse. MS. WILLARD: So she didn't just go into nursing because it was the only thing opened, she truly had a calling? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes. No, that's what she wanted to be, that was something that she had dreamed of, but true it was for most people it was the only thing. They could be a teacher or a nurse and that was about it for women. MS. WILLARD: I take it your mom was a full time homemaker and it sounds like an excellent one? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes, yes, she ..... MS. WILLARD: And how did she feel about her daughters and educating them in the house-wifely arts? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, my sister refused absolutely. She wasn't going to learn how to cook. She hated Home Ee and that was the end of that. Because I was younger, I was home longer. I spent a lot of time watching my mother and as a result I learned a lot just by watching and I was a better cook at 17 than I am today. I loved cooking and I really enjoyed it and my mother loved the help because she did a tremendous amount of entertaining.

We -- even though we were not a Catholic family, we had fish every Friday because my mother never knew who my father was going to bring home for dinner on Fridays and so she always had fish on Fridays just in case and she thought it was a good thing, 55 we needed to have fish at least once a week. We usually had it twice, but no, my mother -- my mother thought it was fun to have her youngest daughter sit and watch and then to learn and to help. MS. WILLARD: Great. Well, I think this is a good breaking point because we're going to move to high school next, so ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. MS. WILLARD: ..... thank you, Grace. Thank you very much. This has been fascinating. VOLUME II

INTERVIEW OF GRACE BERG SCHAIBLE June 28, 2006

'le. 56

P R O C E E D I N G S

MS. WILLARD: Today is June 28th, 2006. We are in Fairbanks. The interviewee is once again Grace Berg Schaible, a continuation from our last session. And Donna Willard-Jones is the interviewer. Grace, I believe when we left off last time we had reached approximately grade seven in your chronological life history, so why don't we pick up there and you tell me a bit about what you were doing at that juncture? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, seventh trade was, again, a major change in the Juneau School systems. They didn't ever have a middle school, but they pretended that we were in the middle school so that we had different teachers for various classes. It was also the time when one of the very favorite music and art teachers came back to the Juneau system. She's absolutely a delightful woman, but we didn't hit it off very well. I have no artistic talent whatsoever. I mean my father really wanted me to become an architect and gave up when he discovered that I couldn't even draw a straight line with a ruler without getting my thumb in the way. So Ms. Palmer and I decided that okay, we would concentrate on music. I was already playing the clarinet in the band which I hated, but she was bound and determined to improve vocal programs in the Juneau School system so fine. I went to the first class and I sang alto or I did sing alto at the time and I did read music. And her first comment was 57 oh, you can't even carry a tune in a basket, which just infuriated me because I knew I could sing alto and could read the music and I had no problem with it. But after that initial thing she finally did listen to me and understood that I could read music and I could keep my own as an alto even though practically everybody else knew soprano so .....

But seventh grade was really interesting. We had a new seventh grade teacher, the main classroom teacher, who was a very, very handsome man. And all of us were ga-ga, of course, about our new teacher, but he was an excellent teacher. He later became a lawyer. MS. WILLARD: Who was it? MS. SCHAIBLE: Jerry McLaughlin. And I don't know that he ever practiced in Alaska, but he did go to law school. And I think it was probably the next -- no, it would have been when I went into high school that he became a -- went to law school. And

-- but it was a great time. We started getting newer students whose families had relocated to Juneau. And we also got the one . girl from the Treadwell, City of Treadwell. It wasn't a city anymore, but she came over. And we hit it off because we were taking piano lessons from the same teacher. MS. WILLARD: Maybe you might explain what Treadwell was? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, Treadwell was one of the largest gold mines in the world. It consisted of four different mines 58 connected under the name of Treadwell Mines. And everything burned down in a fire in 1925 maybe. The town was completed destroyed, what was left of it. There had been a terrible mine disaster. No loss of lives, but a mine disaster in 1917. And by 1925 at the time of the fire I think all the mining operations were done except for some gold recovery from the sand on the beach. But Doris' father was the manager of the foundry. The properties had been bought by Alaska Juneau Gold Mining Company. I don' t know when, but they bought the property. And they kept the power plant operating which supplied Douglas with power and the foundry. And Doris came to the Juneau School system. Only one family lived in the old town of Treadwell, and -- but there were other new students that came at that time. MS. WILLARD: What was generating the influx of people to Juneau, do you ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: I don't really know. Juneau had one of the best cold storages in Southeastern Alaska and a lot of halibut fisherman. So that I think that was what was going on and, of course, the gold mine, the Alaska Juneau Gold Mine was still operating. They had purchased in addition to the Treadwell Mines, the Perseverance Mine and they had purchased the Alaska Gastineau Mine which operated Thane and they kept both fully operative, although the camp at Perseverance was permitted to just fall into disrepair, but the Alaska Gastineau portion of the new 59 A. J. Mines was still operating in the town of Thane. It was strictly a company town., but ..... MS. WILLARD: Where was it in relation to Juneau? MS . SCHAIBLE: It's south of Juneau about four miles. It had been started by Bart Thane who was in London in 1911 and 1912 raising funding from Lloyds of London. And actually a story is told that he was on his way home in April of 1912 having secured the financing and he got to Southampton and was called back to London, otherwise he would have sailed on the Titanic.

MS. WILLARD: Oh, my!

MS. SCHAIBLE: But the mine operated for a long time and it was a company town. All the housing was provided for the miners and the mill workers. It just -- it continued to operate until the whole operation was shut down during the Second World War. There was an edict from the federal government that there was no need to continue to produce gold. Those workers could be used in industries better related to the war effort. And so the mine closed and attempts later to resurrect it just didn't work. Of course, the price of gold was not all that great in the '30s. But seventh grade was an exciting time because we did have a lot of different teachers coming around. The band music was one teacher and then the vocal music was Ms. Palmer. MS. WILLARD: What was the name -- did they go to a different name for the school at that point or ..... 60

MS . SCHAIBLE: It was just called Juneau . Public Schools. And the building was torn down, I don't remember when, and remains a vacant lot in Juneau. The high school which was in existence just across the street still remains and it's the State Legislative building, the Legislative Council uses it. It was named for Terry Miller, a long-time senator and Lieutenant Governor from the Fairbanks area, actually from North Pole. But eighth grade continued pretty much the same as seventh grade with this handsome teacher. And more things going on in the classroom because of the different teachers and switching around. Sometimes we'd have a fifth grade teacher. Sometimes we'd have a sixth grade teacher, they were specialists. And so we had a very good elementary school system with sort of a fake middle school. MS. WILLARD: You mentioned was it Doris, your friend, or Delores? MS. SCHAIBLE: Doris Cahill. Her father was the manager of the A.J. Foundry at Treadwell. And when she graduated probably third in the class, she went immediately to California where her family had originally lived. And, let's see, she went to Berkeley and graduated in three years, the first-of our high school class ·to graduate from college, Berkeley. MS. WILLARD: Were you friends throughout your whole ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes. 61 MS. WILLARD: ..... school years? MS. SCHAIBLE: Uh-hum, yes. Her husband was an engineer and very prominent in the Bay area. They lived in San Leandro. And he got Parkinson's disease, was over time quite disabled, and she was providing care for him. And when I would go to California to visit my sister we'd arrange to have lunch together at least once each time. And we just remained friends for how many ever years, 70 years. MS. WILLARD: Was there a formal graduation ceremony after grade eight?

MS. SCHAIBLE: No, there was not. We -- the school year ended in early May and people just sort of dispersed for the summer. A lot of people in Juneau had cabins out on the Lynn Canal area. That's where they spent their summers. We were not of the right age to work. And there weren't that many jobs for teenagers to begin with. I think I'm getting mixed up on the years, but I think that may have been the year that my family -- my mother and my sister and I took off and went on the trip. MS. WILLARD: The Arizona to Seattle ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: The Arizona, yes. MS. WILLARD: ..... that we talked about last time? MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. I think that was the summer after eighth grade. Yeah, that would be right because I went into high school that fall and graduated in 1943, so that had to be the summer that we went. 62 MS. WILLARD: So that would have been 1938? MS. SCHAIBLE: 1939. MS. WILLARD: 1939 ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Uh-huh. MS. WILLARD: . .... the war is about ...... MS. SCHAIBLE: The summer of 1939. And then I went into high school in the fall of 1939 ..... MS. WILLARD: Okay. MS. SCHAIBLE: ..... and graduated in the class of '43. MS. WILLARD: And that was the year the war started of course, World War II. MS. SCHAIBLE: World War II started in Europe ..... MS. WILLARD: Right. MS. SCHAIBLE: ..... and that's what kept my family from going. We had planned to go in 1938, then my father got this job, a huge job that required that he remain at home. And then in 1939 they extended the job and so he still had to remain and that was at the point where my father said well, go take a trip because we're not going to Europe this year. MS. WILLARD: Do you have memories of the war starting in Europe? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes, very definitely. MS. WILLARD: Oh, I'd love to hear. 63

MS. SCHAIBLE: We had good short wave radio reception in Juneau from a Seattle station. And so we followed events there a lot faster than we'd get them out of the Juneau newspaper. And yes, it was something. Both of my parents were immigrants and had a great knowledge of events happening in Europe. Of course, we had followed the rise of Hitler, an administration in Germany that scared the living daylights out of all of us because we had Jewish friends who had relatives in Germany. And so, we were very much aware of what was going on. And when Germany invaded Poland, that was an event that we didn't forget very quickly because we didn't know what was going to happen in Europe. The combination of Hitler and Stalin was just beyond belief because everybody knew about Stalin's repression regime in the Soviet Union. And we just followed events that happened in Europe because of the family relationship with people.

My mother was very concerned because she had worked for a family that had very strong German connections and she was concerned about her Swedish friends who continued to live in Germany. MS. WILLARD: Did you gather around-the radio as a family or ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, we usually it usually happened right after dinner that we could get this Seattle station. And so yes, we sort of gathered around the radio to listen to that news because it was much better. We did have a radio station in 64 Juneau, but their news was even as it is today sort of sound bytes whereas the Seattle station that we listened to, I think it was KIMO, but whatever it was, had fairly good news coverage. And, of course, my father had long subscribed to the Sunday New York Times. And so we got news quite late, but we still read it, the news coming out of Europe. MS. WILLARD: How long did it take for the Times to reach Juneau in those days? MS. SCHAIBLE: It was about two weeks. MS. WILLARD: Uh-hum.

MS. SCHAIBLE: We had quite a bit of steamship activity. And I assume -- the New York Times was only printed in New York in those days and so they would ship them by train to Seattle and then by boat to Juneau. But we got the Sunday New York Times. Again, it was a wonderful place to get an in-depth report that you didn't get in the local papers or even in the Seattle papers. Every now and then my father would bring home a Seattle paper, but they were very expensive in those days to get a Seattle paper in Juneau. And it was four or five days after the date that was on the paper. MS. WILLARD: You might talk a bit about the steamship company which, of course, supplied all of Southeastern and those of us from down there know ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: It supplied all of Alaska basically. MS. WILLARD: Yes. 65 MS. SCHAIBLE: There were two steamship companies that operated. One operated only in Southeastern and then one operated as far as Nome. The Northland Transportation Company only operated in Southeastern. And Alaska Steamship Company operated throughout the territory in those days. Students going outside to college from Nome would meet people from Unalaska, would meet people from Seward, from Cordova, from Haines and Skagway and Juneau, Petersburg, Wrangell. Sometimes they did go into Sitka on their way southbound, but not always. And Petersburg, Wrangell, Ketchikan and Seattle. When my sister went out to college, for example, she met people from Nome who remained friends for a number of years, not all of our lives, but when she got to the University of Washington there was a large crowd of Alaskans there. MS. WILLARD: How often did the steamship come to Juneau? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, it depends on the season. In the summer when they could get into Nome, they couldn't get into Nome, there was no dock, but they would lighter in, those times the steamship was probably in Juneau for the day and then made the stops all northbound. And it was probably two weeks before it got back, but they had three ships serving Alaska. And so it was probably about a week, week or so that -- they started a barge service at the same time. And I don't remember, I want to say Sampson, but I'm not sure that it was Sampson, but it was a barge 66 company that came in carrying building materials and things like that. They didn't transport food. And, you went to the grocery store the day after the ship arrived because that was the only time you had lots of fresh things available. The eggs, unfortunately, were never fresh.

MS~ WILLARD: And the milk could go sour in an instant? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, we had lots of dairies. Juneau had three or four dairies and so the milk was always fresh. MS. WILLARD: Different than Haines. MS. SCHAIBLE: What? MS. WILLARD: Different than Haines. MS. SCHAIBLE: Different than Haines.

MS. WILLARD: We only got the boat once a month. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, well, ours was just about weekly except during the time when one of the ships was engaged in doing the northbound trip. I know that when we went south in 1939 my father had picked a particular ship that he wanted me to be on to see the canneries of the northern section of Southeastern Alaska. And we made that cannery trip from Juneau to Seattle by about 10 canneries. And after Sitka I think we may have stopped in Petersburg, but I don't think we stopped in Wrangell or Ketchikan because there was another ship that was bringing in the cannery supplies for Wrangell and Ketchikan. Ketchikan had so many canneries at the time. 67 But the Alaska Steamship operated, I think, until in the '50s. Northland Transportation disappeared in the '40s, but I think that Alaska Steam operated until in the '50s. In addition, in the summer we had Canadian ships. They were - when they stopped in Skagway they were exempt from the provisions of the Jones Act. And we had the Canadian National Steamships and we had the Canadian Pacific Steamships and they provided excellent service out of Vancouver. And so people had a choice in Juneau during the summer of going either to Vancouver or Seattle. And our summers were long. They started in April and went to September. MS. WILLARD: So in the fall of 1939 it was off to high school? MS. SCHAIBLE: Off to high school. And you know, planning to go to college made a lot of decisions for me as to what subjects I would take. At that time the Juneau School offered its foreign languages, Latin and French. When I was still in high school they started offering Spanish for the first time, but the maximum that they would have would be two years, so I thought well, Latin would be an easy thing and as it turned out we petitioned the school board and got a third year of Latin so that we met the qualifications which was usually three years of a language and Latin qualified. And so I took Latin, English, general science, Alaska history, which you had to take in your freshman or sophomore year. I don't remember what else I took. 68

MS. WILLARD: Math? MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes, algebra. Being in high school you did have teachers that were specialists in their class, whatever they taught they were qualified to teach. And that was really nice. The only thing that they didn't have a teacher qualified to teach was history which was a big mistake for me. The principal of the high school taught the Alaska history class which was a requirement in those days. And he was the principal. He devoted as much time as he could to it, but that wasn't nearly enough. And living in the capital we had an open classroom every other year on Alaska government. And, of course, we did pay a great deal of attention to what the Legislature was doing in those days. It met for 60 days every two years. And it was long before one person one vote. And so we had so many delegates or so many senators from each judicial division and so many representatives from each division, not based on population. MS. WILLARD: Was it still a total of 60? MS. SCHAIBLE: Pardon? MS. WILLARD: Was it still a total of 60 between the two of them? MS. SCHAIBLE: I can't remember. I don't think it was that many. MS. WILLARD: Yes. 69 MS. SCHAIBLE: Because we had two senators. I think the Senate was 16 so that would have only made eight. So they must have had four senators from each division. And I don't remember about the representatives. MS. WILLARD: Uh-hum. MS. SCHAIBLE: I paid more attention to what the Senate was doing than I did to what the House was doing. But again, it was a concentration in our family mostly on local politics. My father ran for a political office and did not win, but all the people who were mayors of Juneau who we knew. We knew most of the people who were in territorial government. MS. WILLARD: Was it as loud and contentious back in those days as it has been in modern times? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, when Ernest Gruening became Governor of Alaska in 1939 he really did stir the pot and it was wonderful because for the first time we had controversies that rose to the level of perception by all the people in the territory instead of just those in Southeastern. So, yes, the Legislature became much more interesting after Gruening became Governor. Governor Troy, who was his predecessor, was a very mild mannered person. He was not a life long Alaskan, but Governor Troy had lived in Alaska a long time and was the publisher of the Juneau Empire. And he paid very little attention to what the Legislature was doing. His directions and orders came from Washington, D.C. 70 and that's what he did. Ernest Gruening had a lot more initiative in dealing with issues that should have been dealt with, so ..... MS. WILLARD: Can you give me some examples? MS. SCHAIBLE: What

MS. WILLARD: Can you give me examples of some of those issues? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, not when he first came, but as the war in Europe progressed he is the one who insisted that we have a National Guard and got that started which -- and he had the Scout program for the villages which was an entirely different kind of Guard. And that became very operative after we got in the war. But 1939 and 1940 were fairly quiet years, largely because life sort of just went on despite what was happening in Europe. It was in late '42 or early '43 we had a woman come from London who had lived through the blitz which made an awareness for other people of what was going on. Of course, we did listen to Edward Murrow from London as much as we could. His reporting was very scary. We didn't see how people could even survive that lived in London. They recently had a film on public television about the blitz and, even after all these years, it was such a frightening experience for people who were going through it. Gained a different perspective on the English intestinal fortitude. MS. WILLARD: About how many people were in Juneau at this time? 71

MS. SCHAIBLE: Probably six or 8,000. We used to say 5,000, but I think that -- well, when the mine shut down there was a loss of people. And then, of course, the military moved in so we had a different outlook. The military built a camp in Juneau and the USO was established there with an ex- Philadelphia lawyer as the executive director, a lawyer named Cadmus Zacheus Gordon. MS. WILLARD: Oh, my! MS. SCHAIBLE: Everybody called him Zack. He was really a great fellow. Absolutely faultless memory. AG.I. could come into the USO, from Excursion Inlet which was the German prisoner camp, but he would come in and meet the G.I. The G.I. wouldn't be back for six months and Zack could remember his name, his hometown and what his interests were. So ..... MS. WILLARD: Did you personally know Ernest Gruening? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes. Uh-hum. MS. WILLARD: Tell us a bit about him. MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, I really got to know him when I was working on my Master's thesis and I was spending a great deal of time in the Territorial Library. And this would be after Ernest was out of office and he was writing his first book. And the Territorial librarian didn't like him. And so he would go to her for help finding something that he wanted and she'd say it's on the shelf. Then he'd come to me and say have you seen the 1916 Report of the Alaska Railroad or the Alaska Road Commission or something 72 like that. And it was something I had looked at and I knew exactly where it was. MS. WILLARD: Why didn't the librarian like him? MS. SCHAIBLE: I haven't any idea. I think that she thought he was intruding on her work and expected her to go and find things for him and she didn't want to leave her desk. I don't know what the reason was. It's unimportant to me, but I would help Ernest Gruening find things in the library. The library was not terribly well organized in those days because the librarian was Russian, I believe, and she was brought in. The library and the museum were one and the same. And she was brought in because there was so much Russian material in the library that had never been translated. They didn't know where it should go. And she was, I think, hired probably for that purpose. But she -- for some reason she didn't like Ernest and yet she was very nice to me. MS. WILLARD: Yes. Perhaps it would be interesting just to fill in why there would be so much Russian material in an Alaskan library. If you could ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. Well, Alaska was, quote, unquote, owned by Russia starting in well, the early 19th Century. 18- -- well, Kodiak had been founded before and .... MS. WILLARD: Yes. MS. SCHAIBLE: But when Sitka -- when Alexander Baranof founded Sitka it became the de facto capital of Russian America. And so there was a lot of literature. There's a 73 tremendous history of Russian involvement in Alaska, particularly in the Native community largely because of the establishment of the Russian Orthodox Church which had churches from the Aleutians all through Southcentral Alaska down into Sitka and ..... MS. WILLARD: And as far north as the Yukon I found. MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, just the southern -- there wasn't much north of -- I don't know where the ..... MS. WILLARD: Pilot Station. MS. SCHAIBLE: Pilot Station, okay. I don't know about the Russian history in that part. I do know about it in the Aleutians and in Southeastern Alaska. One of the Russian Orthodox priests, Father Veniaminov, later became the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church and was named Metropolitan, Metropolitan Innocente .and later became a Saint, Saint Innocent or Saint Innocente. So, it has a tremendous history particularly through the Orthodox Church. And I think probably the oldest original church is in Unalaska. I'm not sure. Kodiak Church, I just don't know that much about it. The Sitka Church burned ..... MS. WILLARD: Uh-hum. MS. SCHAIBLE: ..... and fortunately, they were able to find in the archives in the Soviet Union the original plans and rebuilt the church in its original design, but the one in Unalaska, I think, is probably the original church but it's probably a later 74 date than either Kodiak or Sitka had been. But the Russian influence was very strong. Most of the Russian exploration ships carried scientists. The Bering voyages carried Stellar, George Stellar, for whom the sea cow and the sea lion were named and the jay, Stellar Jay. So -- but they carried scientists and as a result there was a lot of publications in Russia about scientific things in Alaska. And they just needed to have translations done of these and that's what this woman was, I think, hired for because the library contained a lot of original publications in Russian, but the influence there still remains. I mean the Russian Orthodox Church is, I think, the principal thing. The United States National Park Service has done a great deal in trying to recreate and restore some of the Russian things. Of course, Saint Michaels was a project that was supported by the federal government. MS. WILLARD: That's the Sitka Church? MS. SCHAIBLE: That's the Sitka Church. When it burned, Bob Bartlett · was one of the honorary chairs of the rebuilding. Then, later, the Bishop's House which was the house of Bishop -- I don't know, Veniaminov, I think he was still then, but in Sitka, was completely restored by the National Park Service and is part of the Park Service now. There are a couple of buildings in Sitka other than the Bishop's House that are still original Russian. And I had an opportunity a few years ago to make a tour 75 of it and get into one of the buildings. It's a log structure now covered with modern things, but once you get into the attic it's really quite unusual. MS. WILLARD: And the church in Juneau is Saint Nicholas, isn't it? MS. SCHAIBLE: Saint Nicholas. That's a fairly modern church built probably in the late 1800s. Father Kashevarov was the priest there when I was growing up. And the last of his grandchildren died in Sitka a couple of years ago. MS. WILLARD: Back to Ernest. We sort of got ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes . MS. WILLARD: ..... off track there. So you were helping him. MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, I was helping and that's how I got to know him, yes. MS. WILLARD: Okay. MS. SCHAIBLE: And, of course, I did know him because I was doing my graduate work in Washington, D.C. and, come the push for Statehood, he was back there as a Tennessee planner. I'd get invited quite frequently when distinguished people were going to have dinner at the home of Bob Bartlett. And so I'd see him and his wife there. MS. WILLARD: And we'd better explain who Bob Bartlett was, too. 76

MS . SCHAIBLE: Oh, Bob Bartlett, Democrat, who started out working for Tony Dimond in Washington, D. C. , Tony Dimond being our delegate starting in 1933. And Bob worked for him. Then, when the Federal Housing Commission started during the Roosevelt Administration, he came back to Alaska to head up that program. And then he became the Secretary of Alaska which is the equivalent of a Lieutenant Governor appointed by President Roosevelt-. And when Tony Dimond decided to retire and return to Alaska, Bob .Bartlett ran as the delegate and was our delegate from 1945 to 1959 when he became our first -- one of the first two senators. MS. WILLARD: The other being Ernest. MS. SCHAIBLE: The other being Ernest Gruening. MS. WILLARD: Okay. MS. SCHAIBLE: Bob's wife was Vide Gaustud, from the Interior of Alaska, whose father was a miner named Gaustud, who my father admired very much. And he thought Vide was pretty nice and when the Bartletts move into Juneau again they bought a house that needed considerable care. And Vide used to consult with my father all the time and so I knew Vide from the time I was a kid. When I went back my junior year in college to George Washington University they made me feel very much at home and I just got to know them as personal friends and they remained that way until the end of their lives. 77 MS. WILLARD: I know we're way ahead of ourselves in the time frame, but it's so interesting we -- I just need to ask what sort of community of Alaskans were there back in D.C. in those days? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, which days are you talking about? MS. WILLARD: I'm talking about when you ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Statehood time? MS. WILLARD: Yes. MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, you had regular visits from the Alaska Statehood Committee and that's when I got to know the At woods. I didn' t I don' t think I don't remember ever meeting Wally Hickel in those days. MS. WILLARD: Yes. I'm thinking maybe we're little late. I'm thinking more your time at George Washington while you were an undergraduate. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yeah, my junior year. MS. WILLARD: What year would that have been? MS. SCHAIBLE: '47, '48. MS. WILLARD: Let's go back there. MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. Yes. Well, we had the Alaska Statehood Committee come in, not in those days on a regular basis ..... MS. WILLARD: Right. 78 MS. SCHAIBLE: .... because things were very discouraging about Statehood at that period of time. Truman was President. I had a series of tickets that took me to Constitution Hall on a regular basis and I got to see Harry Truman because he sat in a particular place all the time, but he attended most concerts there. And let's see, in '47, '48, I don't recall that there were many Alaskans there. Occasionally, when I was in Bartlett's office picking up books, I'd meet Alaskans, but I don't have any distinct memories of them, who they were. Work could deal with Mary Lee Council who was Bob's special assistant in Washington, D.C. I would go to the Library of Congress and find the books that I really needed to have and she would take them out as Congressmen were able to do and then I could take them home and use them in my research. MS. WILLARD: What I was really wondering, I mean I assume that the world of Alaskans in D.C. back in late '40s was pretty· finite? MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. MS. WILLARD: Was it a close knit community? MS. SCHAIBLE: I don't know because the only time I really ever saw Alaskans was at the Bartlette. MS. WILLARD: Yes. MS. SCHAIBLE: And at the office of the delegates. MS. WILLARD: Okay. 79 MS. SCHAIBLE: You know, I was a busy student. MS. WILLARD: Sure. Well, we probably should regress again and go back to, I think we'd reached grade nine. MS. SCHAIBLE: Then, I continued on a college curriculum designed to admit me to almost any college that I would choose. And that remained the way through the rest of high school. I think the thing that I remember most about high school was the Latin class. We had a first year Latin teacher who was okay. Our second year teacher was just absolutely fabulous. And there were 10 of us that petitioned the school board for a third year of Latin. One of the classmates was the son of the superintendent of the school who immediately pushed for this third year. And the teacher -- the second year teacher continued on. Then she married and she couldn't teach any more. The system that they had in most public schools was that married women didn't teach. Yes, because they were taking the job of someone who needed the work. Terrible thing. But anyway, they got us another teacher for that third year class who was a real pain. And we were translating all Ovid's Metamorphoses, which is not an easy thing to do as it's written iambic pentameter, and I couldn't figure out how I was ever going to do my translations in iambic pentameter, which is what she was asking. And so we fixed her.

We got the telephone operator to plug in all of our calls so that the nine of us, there were only nine that ended up in the class, the nine of us could in fact, talk to each other and trade 80 translations. And she never figured out what had happened because all of our translations were the same, but we did it. And got through Latin, through dear Latin that way. And that was -- no, I guess it was the next year. The superintendent decided -- there was no principal of the high school per se, the superintendent was acting as principal. And he said that everyone graduating from high school in the class of 1943 had to take typing, everyone had to take typing. And the boys were just furious, absolutely furious that they had to learn how to type. They said we'll never use this, but they all did use it because most of them went on to college. And it was pretty important to have it. A lot of my classmates went into the service immediately. And ...... MS. WILLARD: How many were in the class of '43? MS. SCHAIBLE: Thirty-seven. It's surprising. I had 37 in my high school graduating class and 37 in my college graduating class. But in any event, we all did that. And he suggested for the women that they take shorthand, so my senior year there I am taking typing and shorthand. I'm glad I did because it immediately got me a job. MS. WILLARD: What were you doing during the summers between high school years? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, one summer -- two summers, I think it was in high school, I was baby sitting. One of them was both times were boys. And one boy was a preemie, born 81 prematurely and was having some difficulty getting coordinated. A neighbors of ours. And they chose me because my mother was a stay at home mother and if there were problems arising during the day she could take care of them rather than calling the mother from work and so I baby sat. And it was just a wonderful experience for me because they were very fond of vocal music and they had wonderful recordings. And part of my job was to sharpen the cactus needles that they used on their fine recordings and they introduced me to a Swedish singer named Jussi Bjorling who to this day remains my favorite tenor. And Tiffy he was called, loved music, just loved music. And so after he came from his afternoon nap we'd both sit and listen to records. And then we'd go for a walk and we'd walk down to the dairy and get an ice cream cone. And for a nickel you got a double dip ice cream cone. And they left me 10 cents every day to buy the double dip ice cream cones for Tiffy and myself, but I enjoyed that. The next year I was baby sitting another boy and all he liked to do was find a group and play pick up baseball, so we would find someone's back yard that was big enough to play baseball and I'd sit there and watch them play baseball. He was a little bit older than Tiffy was, but really a nice kid. And the parents were just wonderful people. I enjoyed working with them. And both parents worked hard. He was the Standard Oil representative and she worked in one of the government offices and I don't remember 82 which, but she would always have me start the dinner preparations. That was fun. That was great fun, getting the potatoes boiling or baking or whatever they were going to have. Rinsing the rice so that when she came home the rice was all rinsed and ready to be cooked. Soaking the liver in milk because it made it better. And I just -- it was great fun to start preparation. She'd always leave written instructions for me. She only lived about a block away and the boy was boisterous and healthy and so I didn't have to worry about my mother being called in, but I think I did that two summers. And I can't remember the summer between my junior and senior year. I don't -- I have no memory of what I did then. I was very active in the Rainbow Girls and so I was usually memorizing the things I had to have for the next office I was going to be in Rainbow Girls. MS. WILLARD: What offices did you go through? MS. SCHAIBLE: All the way through to Worthy Advisor. But I served, I think, in every station in the Rainbow program. MS. WILLARD: And were you in Girl Scouts as well? MS. SCHAIBLE: I can't remember being in Girl Scouts in high school. I think that was something in grammar school. The program just sort of fell apart. And I know I went to Girl Scout Camp two years and that must have been sixth and seventh grade and seventh and eighth grade, but I don't remember being in Girl 83 Scouts. I think we tried to revive it and it didn't work. There just wasn't enough interest in it. MS. WILLARD: Out of the 37 in your class how was the division between boys and girls? MS. SCHAIBLE: I have no way of knowing. I mean I'd have to go look at the roster of the class and count them. I still have my senior year book. I gave them rest of them away but I kept my senior year book. That's been a wonderful way for me to remember classmates. We were the first class in the Juneau School to have a class secretary. We'd heard that, when you graduate from high school, you've got to have a class secretary and she's been a wonderful source for all us. She keeps in touch with everybody. And she keeps in touch with students who weren't necessarily in our class or didn't graduate with us, but we'd gone through maybe six grades together or something. She kept in touch with everybody. MS. WILLARD: Who was that? MS. SCHAIBLE: Her name is Marie Darling. She was Marie Hannah. She was a school bus student. She comes from one of the older families in the Juneau area. And her uncle was Waino Hendrickson who was our last Governor of the Territory. Everyone says that Mike Stepovich was, but Waino was. And he was the Secretary of Alaska when Mike in 1958 decided to run for one of the seats, governor something. I can't remember what he ran for, but he had to resign as Governor and Waino became Governor, and it was his niece who was our class secretary. 84 MS. WILLARD: Did you have any other extracurricular activities throughout your high school years? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, piano. And I persuaded my parents that if they would let me take organ lessons I could drop the clarinet which I hated, but it worked out that way, I took organ. And so I practiced organ and piano both. And Doris Cahill, my friend from Treadwell, and I together with our music teacher, piano teacher, used to give recitals. And they'd haul in an extra piano to the ballroom of the Masonic Temple Lodge and they had two pianos to perform on. Doris and I played duets. I played duets with the teacher and Doris played duets with the teacher. We both played separate things. We had, I don't know, maybe three concerts during high school years. And Rainbow occupied a lot of my time. And I was still doing baby sitting in the evenings for the neighborhood children. MS. WILLARD: Were you ever involved in any sports, organized sports? MS. SCHAIBLE: Not really. Archery. That was taught in school. And my father created my own target which we used to take out to the rifle range in Juneau and I would practice out there.

We did a lot of bicycle riding. It was a regular thing both in grade school and high school to go bike riding. We'd ride out to Thane. And in the summer sometimes it was warm enough to go swimming. 85

And they had a golf course out in the tailings pile from the Thane Mine. And the sand was pretty good for building sand castles, not the best in the world. And then we'd ride out on Glacier Highway, stop and visit friends. And ride out to the cabin that we had used when we were kids and spend the afternoon., 14 miles on a bicycle on a gravel road was pretty tough going. And we didn't do that often. One of my other close friends and I used to bicycle ride out to the Fagerson Pond which had been a gravel pit and go swimming there because the water was always warmer. I would never go to the Marshall Pond after I jumped off the thing and went down and got my mouth full of mud from the bottom. I just refused to go back to Marshall Pond. And the family, we spent a lot of time going picnicking and traveling around. You drive the back road in Juneau and out by Auke Lake and invariably you'd see a bear. We'd go gold panning up in Montana Creek. There were lots of activities, but for organized sport, no. We didn't have anything really except in school and I had no desire to belong to the Rifle Club because that was something I did when I was a kid was shoot. I had my own .22. That was no big deal. The neighbor across the street was the chief of police and was a remarkable gun specialist. And he used to compete in the

NRA national competitions. And in -- on a day off -- I baby sat his children, so on a day off every now and then he'd take me out 86 to the rifle range and we'd both go shooting. He said you'll never make it. But we did have a lot of fun. So in high school I took up archery because rifles were just -- that was old hat. MS. WILLARD: What was the police chief's name? MS. SCHAIBLE: Kenneth Jung. J-u-n-g. And his children, Sandra now lives in Ketchikan. And she and her cousin, Marie Hannah Darling, go back and trace their family history in Finland. She's amazing. The other one is Beverly Keithann. She's married to the son of the man who became the curator of the Territorial Museum and the Territorial Librarian. MS. WILLARD: Did you have boyfriends during high school? MS. SCHAIBLE: No, not at all. Some of the girls did, but it was sort of casual and that al ways became a real problem for me when they'd have dances. The DeMolays would sponsor dances and Rainbow Girls were always invited and that was not my cup of tea. And I didn't -- I don't remember no, I didn't date at all in high school. Some of the girls did and some of them became really quite involved with their boyfriends, but I had ot0er things to do. And one of them was to spend time at the library doing research, or practicing the organ because I would use the organ from 4: 3 O to 5: 3 0 every night at the Episcopal Cathedral which just burned in Juneau. MS. WILLARD: Why don't we take just a short break. 87 MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. (Off record) (On record) MS. WILLARD: Do you have any further recollections, we started at the first one when the war started, but do you remember or was there anything of significant impact that you recollect through those years, your high school years concerning the war and how it affected you? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, very much so when the Nazis invaded Norway, my father's home. My father had two sisters still living in Northway and, of course, was very concerned about what was happening to them, both considerably older than my father. They lived alone in my grandfather's house in this small village,

hardly a village even, in Norway. We didn't find out until after the war what had happened. One of the sisters had been refused medication by the Nazis and she had a heart condition and she died during the Second World War. The other sister survived the war and, of course, my father sent money immediately, but that didn't do any good because they were quite remote from centers of population. And she asked that we not send money, but that we send things that she would list that she needed, needles, thread. She said that she'd run out of everything like that. She wanted wool so that she could continue to weave. She does Norwegian weaving. Food, of course. 88

We were limited in care packages that we could send. We could only send, I think it was 15 pounds once a week, but my mother cheated every time and sent more than 15 pounds because she had no flour, no spices. She just needed everything. She had fresh milk available to her because one of the neighbors living up the road had a cow so she had that. But, that was about the only thing that she had. We sent lots of canned fruit, butter, canned butter. I remember helping my mother pack these things every week after the war and -- well, every week that I was home, but that was a big concern to the family that we had relatives in harm's way in Norway. And as it turned out the surviving aunt only lived for about two years after the war. She had so many deprivations that she wasn't really very well by the time the war ended. So, yes, we were very much aware of what happened in Europe at that time. And, of course, classmates and friends went into the military and one of the first -- one of the very first casual ties of Juneau High School graduates was the grandson of Father Kashevarov, Leroy Vestal. I don't think any of our classmates died during the war, but they were all in the military. MS. WILLARD: Where were you ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: 1942 when Dutch Harbor was bombed, I was at a Presbyterian Youth Conference in Wrangell. And, of course, the conference was immediately canceled and all of the participants were sent home. Those of us who were going to Juneau were placed aboard the SJS II, it's the Sheldon Jackson training 89 ship that was built by Sheldon Jackson students and it was a fishing boat. We went from Wrangell to Petersburg. We had engine problems and we had a problem with the Coast Guard. They didn't know what was happening on the coast of Alaska, other than Dutch Harbor being bombed. And there were reports of sightings of Japanese submarines which turned out not to be true, but Japanese submarines off Sitka. So, once the boat was fixed, the Coast Guard said we will permit you to return to Juneau but all the girls have to be in the hold. The hold really smelled of fish, and it was pretty dark and dim down there. As soon as we got out of the sight of Petersburg the skipper let us all out of the hold, but all the girls had to be in the pilot house which made it very crowded. There were about 10 of us. And I remember falling asleep leaning against the binnacle and Walter Soboleff, who was accompanying us, said wake up, Grace, you' re going to fall down, wake up. But we made it home and everyone was down at the dock to pick us up, so it was an interesting time. They canceled the Presbyterian Youth Conference in 1943. And that meant I had an opportunity to go to the Rainbow Grand Convention in Wenatchee, Washington and support one of my classmates who was elected the Grand Worthy Advisor. MS. WILLARD: Do you recollect where you were when December 7th, 1941 occurred? 90 MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes, I was home. Uh-hum. It was, of course, for us it was Sunday afternoon before we got the news and I remember being in the living room helping my mother vacuum because we were expecting guests for dinner. And she wanted to make certain that the living room was perfectly clean and so she was vacuuming. And my sister-in-law who lived next door came running in and said they bombed Pearl Harbor and there's going to be a big blackout tonight in Juneau. And I said Pearl Harbor, why would they bomb Pearl Harbor? I was thinking of a place called Pearl Harbor that's just north of Juneau. And my sister-in-law, said Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Oh, the naval base. I hadn't connected. Why would they bomb our Pearl Harbor. But yes, I remember that very distinctly. And we did have a blackout in Juneau that night. It was the beginning of blackouts. We had blackouts for, oh, maybe a week or two. And they decided that no, the Japanese were busy elsewhere and so it was quite a surprise when they decided to bomb Dutch Harbor. MS. WILLARD: And invade ultimately?

MS. SCHAIBLE: Hum?

MS. WILLARD: And invade. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes, they invaded Ki ska and Attu, two of the Aleutian Islands. MS. WILLARD: Right.

MS. SCHAIBLE: My brother went into the military, went into the Army right away and after they had started the 91 cleanup of the Japanese operation there, he was sent to the Aleutians and lived on Attu and was loaned to the Seabees, because not only was he a heavy equipment operator he was also a heavy equipment mechanic and they needed him for the Seabees to build all the installation that they were building on Attu. And they wanted him to go to Fort Belvoir to join the engineers and go to Fort Belvoir and he said no, he'd rather stick with his Army unit. And he wintered over on Attu. And then he said I think I'll go to Fort Belvoir, get out of the Aleutians, which he did.

MS. WILLARD: We probably should jump back just a bit. You mentioned a name that's familiar to me but that won't be to a lot of people. Perhaps you could explain who Walter Soboleff is? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh. Walter Soboleff is part Russian as you can tell from the name. He is a Tlingit Indian. He went to a seminary at Dubuque in Iowa, a Presbyterian Seminary. Came back and headed up the Memorial Presbyterian Church in Juneau which my father had built. I was very close to my own pastor and his wife and so I'd go to church in the morning. I'd go to Sunday School and then church in the morning at Northern Lights Presbyterian Church which was the white church. And then in the evening I'd go with my pastor and his wife to the Native church, the Memorial Church and Walter Soboleff was the pastor there. I knew Walter and his first wife, Genevieve, quite well as a result of that. 92 Walter remained in the Presbyterian ministry even after the Memorial Church was closed. Active in the villages, in Juneau, and then he served time as director of the Native Studies here at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. And he's just a really great Native leader. I got to see him just a couple of weeks ago in Sitka. His first wife died of Alzheimer's at a very early age. And he remarried a woman from Metlakatla who's a Tsimshian. His first wife was Haida. And he is on the Board of Trustees of Sheldon Jackson College. And remained one of the premier persons in connection with the Presbyterian Youth Conference that I attended in Wrangell, of course, remains very fondly in my mind. And also Walter recruited me in 1994 to -- 1944 to help organize the Presbyterian Youth Conference. I was no longer eligible for it, but to help organize it at Sheldon Jackson College where it had traditionally been held. MS. WILLARD: He obtained his doctorate at some point, right? MS. SCHAIBLE: What?

MS. WILLARD: Walter obtained a doctorate at some point, did he not? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, he did. That was at Dubuque.

MS. WILLARD: Okay.

MS. SCHAIBLE: The ministry -- I don't know that

much about Dubuque, but we've had a lot of Presbyterian people from Alaska go there. In fact, when they set up the Indigenous 93 Pastorate Study Program, the Pastorate used to be here that went to head that program. His daughter is married to a Presbyterian minister at North Pole and he just retired as Presbyterian minister in Palmer. MS. WILLARD: Hum. MS. SCHAIBLE: The connections are all there, but Walter got his doctorate in Theology from Dubuque. MS. WILLARD: And another name, of course, that's familiar to me, but I think we need probably a bit on is Sheldon Jackson. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, Sheldon Jackson. He was a historical founder of Sheldon Jackson Training Schools in Sitka. MS. WILLARD: A sketch at least. MS. SCHAIBLE: A sketch. Wel 1, he came to Alaska in 1890 -- 1870, something like that, he was the head of the Bureau of Education for Alaska and was responsible for trying to set up schools for Native children in the villages. He was also a great collector of Native art. He spent a tremendous amount of time in Western Alaska, but he traveled around. He was a Presbyterian minister. Did he set up Haines House? MS. WILLARD: Yes. MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. And he set up a Native training center, an industrial training center. They taught boat building. They taught a number of things that were necessary, actually quite a bit of involvement with fisheries. And that Native training 94 school later became Sheldon Jackson School named for him which trained Natives in a variety of things. And it was originally just eight grades. Then it became a full school through high school. And then sometime, I think probably in the '40s, they dropped the elementary portion and in the '50s they became a junior college, high school and junior college. And it was responsible for training most of the -- not most, but quite a few of the Native leaders within the state. It's a wonderful school. He gave his collection of Native art to set up a museum which is called the Sheldon Jackson Museum. It's part of the state museum group and was the first concrete building built in Alaska. And so we have this wonderful college now which is a four year college located in Sitka in a beautiful setting. The original people who founded it were with the Presbyterian National Mission and they hired a New York architect to design the campus in Sitka. And it is one of the most beautiful campuses in the state. All the buildings date from 1906 to 1910. Right now, in Sitka, they're in the process of trying to restore the Allen Memorial Building which was the -- for a long time the only place for performance and lectures and things like that in Sitka. I just happened to meet with Dave Dobler who is the current president last Saturday. And talking about finishing the restoration of that. MS. WILLARD: Okay. Then you graduated -- was it Juneau Douglas or just Juneau at the time? 95 MS. SCHAIBLE: Just Juneau. MS. WILLARD: Yes. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes, Juneau High School. MS. WILLARD: Juneau High in 1943. And what then happened? MS. SCHAIBLE: Wel 1, then I went to the Grand Convention in Wenatchee, Washington for the Rainbow Girls and saw my friend elected as the Grand Worthy Advisor which she was for a year. I had gone south on a Canadian vessel which friends were traveling on so they helped me get from Vancouver to Seattle by the day boat and then I took the train to Wenatchee. And I came back to Seattle after the convention and there was a telegram, cablegram actually from my father saying he had been trying to catch a plane south. He didn't have enough priority to do it, so he took a Canadian ship south and I was to stay in Seattle until he got there. And we had travel documents, travel papers to travel any place out of Alaska, all Alaskans had to fill out these papers. It was like getting a passport, but we had travel documents. And so I waited until my father came and we visited my sister who was in nurse's training. She had one of her clerkships in Gray's Harbor and so she came up to visit. And we had a couple of days with my sister and she went back to work, and my father and I headed home, but before we left Seattle I ran into one of my classmates who had just sort of disappeared from the scene right 96 after we graduated. And I said, Harry, what are you doing here? And he said I'm going on a PT boat to the Aleutians. Oh, does your family know? No, they don't even know I'm in the service. Oh, well, can I tell them when I get home? He said that would be nice, dad will explode. And so my father and I took a Canadian ship back. I said I'm not taking the day boat again, so I took the train from Seattle to Vancouver. Another friend from Juneau was doing the same thing. He was taking the train instead of the day boat and he told my father he'd keep his eye on me. And he had a day room at one of the hotels there. The ship wasn't scheduled to sail until 9:00 at night. So he said you're on your own kid. And so I wandered around Vancouver on my own which was fine. And I was to meet him for dinner at the hotel. It was the Georgian Hotel I know. And then he'd take me to the dock. MS. WILLARD: The Hotel Georgia? MS. SCHAIBLE: Uh-hum. (Affirmative) And he would take me to the dock. And my father was taking all the luggage on the day boat so I didn't have to worry about that. But the Black Watch was in town. The Scottish troops were in town in Vancouver on their way to the Pacific. And oh, they gave a parade which I got to watch on the streets of Vancouver. And it was really a splendid display. I love bagpipes and so it was great to watch that. 97 And then I just sort of wandered in and out of stores.

And I think at 5:00 o'clock I met Fred and we had dinner and then found the dock and my father was there and we boarded the ship to head back. All my papers were in order so I had no problem. My father's papers were in order. He had no problem. Fred's papers were in order, so we got everything arranged. I got my stateroom and I looked at the two women who were in there and left and got a hold of my father and said, dad, they've put me in a room with a couple of hookers. And he said, are you sure? And I said, dad, I know what a hooker is. And okay, I'll go check it out. And so we went back in. My father introduced himself and we left.

We went to the purser and my father was boiling, boiling mad and he spoke to the purser and said do you know, you idiot, you put my daughter in with a couple of hookers. And he said no, we don't have any hookers aboard. My father said, she recognized them. I went to see if she was right and she's right. Where are you going to put her? She's not going to stay in that room. And he said you will collect the luggage and so you can see for yourself. So the purser went ah, like the kid's right, collected my luggage and he found me another bed in a three bedded room with two women who didn't have their papers in order, but had been let aboard the ship headed for Whitehorse. And they really shouldn't have ever been let on the ship because they were going to join their husbands and that was a no-no as far as the Canadian 98 government was concerned. They did not want additional people in Whitehorse. They were building the (indiscernible) pipeline and they did not want extra people in Whitehorse that didn't belong there. But, they had little kids with them who were well behaved and we got along fine.

MS. WILLARD: Why were papers required for Alaskans? MS. SCHAIBLE: I don't know. MS. WILLARD: Okay. MS. SCHAIBLE: It was travel documents that we had to have. I found mine the other day, couldn't believe I still had them. Well, it wasn't the other day, it was six months ago. I was looking for something else and came up on my papers. MS. WILLARD: Interesting. MS. SCHAIBLE: It's a long document. Legal size document where you had to tell, you know, all the information about you and your family. MS. WILLARD: This looks like it might be a good time to break and go get something to eat since we're turning ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. (Off record) (Tape change) (On record) MS. WILLARD: Do you remember anything about World War II that might have had a particular influence on your life and your attitudes going forward? 99

MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, except the fact that at age 17 my father didn't want me to go off to college during the war. He thought it was really -- my brother and sister were gone and he thought it'd be nice if I stayed home. And we sort of made a deal that if I worked that he would help pay for college for me. And that was a great deal. And I think I mentioned running into Harry, my classmate from high school and his family didn't know where in the blazes he was.

So when I got back to Juneau I called his father and told him that I'd run into Harry and oh, he said, come have lunch with me, I want to hear all about it. So the next day I went to lunch with him and he brought his daughter, Mary, who was younger than I was. But he brought Mary so that she could hear it. His mother just didn't want to go. She was so upset that he hadn't kept in touch that she didn't want to hear anything secondhand. And so we went to lunch and I told them about running into Harry and what Harry was doing and all this. And he was so pleased to hear about it and Mary was thrilled and she said she could hardly wait to tell her younger brothers that I knew where Harry was. And a couple of days passed and I thought well, I've got to start looking for a job and about that time the phone rang and it was Mr. Sperling and he said Mary tells me that you're going job hunting. And I said yes, I am. Then he said come to the off ice, I want to interview you. And oh, what kind of a job do you have? He said it's a secretarial position. And he said I just 100 want you to come. We need an additional secretary. The woman that was working for me left in a huff and so uh-oh, what am I getting into. But in any event, I went for the interview and he offered me the job. And I started a few days later to work for the U.S. Forest Service where Mr. Sperling was the chief operating officer for the Forest Service and for the Alaska region which included, of course, the Tongass National Forest and the Chugach National Forest and had been the headquarters for the Civilian Conservation Corp, and was also the headquarters for the Alaska Spruce Log Program. So I went to work in operations. Frank Heintzleman who was the regional forester asked Mr. Sperling how old I was. And he said she's 1 7. And Mr. Heintzleman said we've never hired anybody under the age of 20, maybe 18 for a short period of time, but never 17. And Mr. Sperling said I have a personal obligation that I'm paying off this way, and he said she's a good worker. She's worked several days and she understands what her job is and she asks questions if she doesn't understand, he said, I'd like to keep her. And Mr. Heintzleman agreed that he could keep me, but he was going to transfer me temporarily to his office so that he could really keep his beady eye on me 'cause he didn't believe any 17 year old could do the job. Well, it was the most boring job in the world that he gave me, but I did it. And he finally said, you know, it's okay. In the meantime his executive assistant had taken a shine to me, you know, she'd never had anyone that young working 101 in the Forest Service off ice and she'd been there forever, so everything worked out fine. And so I worked there. And then Alva Blackerby, who was the personnel officer for all the government agencies connected with the war thing, said I need to have Grace come work for me.

She's willing to work long hours. We were working 48 hour weeks, but she's willing to work longer hours when, you know, I can't run the Office of Price Regulations, whatever it is ..... MS. WILLARD: Price Administration. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes, okay. OPA. MS. WILLARD: Yes. MS. SCHAIBLE: From the Office of Price Administration is hiring new people, she'll get the paperwork done in one day, and I just need that done. We had only three or four more agencies in the Forest Service, and so I went to work there. Really loved it although the hours were incredibly long. I worked every Sunday from after church until 6: 00 at night. I worked almost every night for a couple of hours just trying to keep ahead of the paperwork. MS. WILLARD: Did the federal government pay overtime in those days? MS. SCHAIBLE: Certainly not. But I did get raises. And I loved the work. It was really great. And, you know, it was time for me to think about college again. And I got an offer from the superintendent of schools. His assistant had decided she was 102 going finally to go off to college. And he said, you know, he wanted me to work as his secretary and as a supervisor of the office girls. So I took the job and got a temporary teaching certificate as a result. And ..... MS. WILLARD: What year was that? MS. SCHAIBLE: That would have been 1944. And so I went to work and the office hours were just really crazy. I mean I went in at a quarter to 8:00 in the morning and I got off at 3:00 in the afternoon, but I had to go back at night to handle the gate for basketball games. And that was .....

MS. WILLARD: We know how important basketball is in Southeastern Alaska. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. Well, it's very important and it was the school sport. And it was boys basketball that was very popular and the Crimson Bears of Juneau was an important team. The territory didn't have a lot of competition with the schools as we call it to the westward or the Interior, but the Crimson Bears beat, I think, every high school in Southeastern on a regular basis. And so the games were played in Juneau most times and, you know, students were traveling by ship and sometimes small boats to get to where they needed to play, but I'd go back at night and I'd come in around 8:30 or 9:00 after everybody was -- had paid their way in, not the students, the students didn't have to pay but the adults did. And I'd take the money and prepare the report and put it in the safe at school and then go home. And that was fine. I 103 loved doing the work and it was fun to be around the people in the office. And then I got a call from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and they said, Grace, we understand you've been off in the afternoon, would you be willing to come to work? I said hey, I work enough hours, I just put in, you know, 60 hour weeks, I'm not about to go back to that. And they said but we really need somebody who can type accurately and fast. Okay. I can type accurately and fast. We' re doing the inventory of al 1 of the Native art work from all over the territory. And this was the predecessor of the Alaska Native Arts Annex. MS. WILLARD: Arts and Crafts? MS. SCHAIBLE: Arts and Crafts, yes. So at 4:00 o'clock -- because my hours got extended because of various things going on in the school. And so at 4:00 o'clock I'd walk down the hill to the office and I would type until 7:00 o'clock doing the inventory. And it gave me an opportunity to learn a lot more about Alaska Native arts and crafts. And I got to buy things at wholesale price. And so my family got used to it. I bought a lot of things and squirreled them away, but I'd give gifts of Alaska Native arts and crafts. I wish I had kept some of them, but it was fun. And when the inventory got done, I think it was probably this must have been in November that I got the offer and probably the inventory was all done and proofread and finished in 104 April, so I didn't have that job anymore. And the school was going to be out and I was all set to go to Northwestern University because they had deferred my entrance when my father said no. And I was all set to go and then Charles Bunnell came to talk to the school and the superintendent introduced me to him, of course he was in the office and I got introduced to him and he said oh, you' re the Berg that I have a message for. And it was my classmates who were at the university. And their word was come save your money, go to the University of Alaska and then you can go - you know, spend a couple of years here, then you can go Outside to school having saved a lot of money. So I thought about it and I talked it over with my parents and my father's response was I think a year will be enough then you'd better go Outside. I don't want your graduating from Moose College. MS. WILLARD: Moose College? MS. SCHAIBLE: You know, Cow College Southern, Moose College Interior. Okay. So school was out, I didn't have a job for the summer, BIA calls, the man who had hired me to help with the annex thing was now director of enrollment for all of BIA's boarding schools. Eklutna and Wrangell. And so he offered me a job and I said, you know, I don't think I'd better take it because I'm leaving for college in the fall. And he said well, the summer will help, so I went to work for him and worked that summer getting students, making certain that they had all their physical exams, 105 and that all of their grades had been reported so that they could go to Wrangell Institute, and then arrange for transportation. from their villages to either Eklutna or Wrangell Institute. MS. WILLARD: Eklutna or Edgecumbe? MS. SCHAIBLE: Eklutna and Wrangell. MS. WILLARD: Oh. MS. SCHAIBLE: Edgecumbe didn't exist. MS. WILLARD: It didn't' exist back in those days? MS. SCHAIBLE: No.

MS. WILLARD: Oh. MS. SCHAIBLE: It didn't exist until after the war. MS. WILLARD: Huh. MS. SCHAIBLE: The two BIA schools were Eklutna and Wrangell. And that's where I learned what caries was, a hole in the tooth. You, never hear that. And practically all these students had caries which needed to be taken care of. And at both Wrangell and Eklutna there were dentists so that wasn't any problem. But, anyway, that was an absolutely wonderful summer. And I met a lot of interesting people as a result. And ...... MS. WILLARD: Can you tell me who some of them were? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, there were people that worked for the BIA. MS. WILLARD: Yes. MS. SCHAIBLE: Teachers on their way to their first assignment. Teachers transferring and coming through Juneau. And 106 I just met a lot of really interesting people. The BIA teachers in that period of time were much more devoted to staying in a village than they are now or they were in later years. And you had some teachers who had been in villages for four and five years and decided okay, our kids are getting to an age where they need a different environment, we need to get closer to a big city. And one of the larger communities, there are no big cities in Alaska then. They'd be coming through Juneau and you'd get to visit with them and they were just delightful people. The man who headed the office I was working in had come to Alaska as a school teacher and he'd been at Quinhagak. And, he talked so lovingly about Quinhagak that I always wanted to go there and I finally got there when I was a regent of the University. And the first thing I saw was the general store there. Quinhagak, Alaska, it's not the end of the earth but you can't see it from here. But in any event, I spent a memorable time. And then came time for me to get ready to go to college. MS. WILLARD: Okay. Did I read somewhere that you had started your secretarial work as a part-timer with your dad? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes. MS. WILLARD: Tell me a bit about that. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, well, my father had a construction company and during the early part of the war. He had no one to work for him in the office. My mother was doing the bookkeeping, but there was no one that could use the typewriter. 107 And I could hunt and peck. I really had a wonderful time hunting and pecking away at a typewriter because this was before I took typing and so he put me to work. And he'd tell me what he wanted in a letter and I'd write the letter for him. I would -- I did everything that he wanted me to do running the office, but it was very part-time. And my father's deal with me was that he would pay me the same rate that he paid his common laborers, none of which had ever graduated from high school and I was in high school and I'd probably graduate so he was going to pay me the same rate which in those days was $3.00 an hour.

MS. WILLARD: Wow. MS. SCHAIBLE: That was a lot of money. And so, of course, he kept the hours down to a minimum and -- but I did get $3.00 an hour and that was sort of my standard. Well, when you go to work for the federal government they pay you a monthly salary.

And, of course, we had the beginning of COLA in those days, the cost of living allowance. MS. WILLARD: Uh-hum. MS. SCHAIBLE: And that was 25 percent. MS. WILLARD: You had pretty steady employment from early on in high school through and then after. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes. 108 MS. WILLARD: What were you doing with all that money? MS. SCHAIBLE: Putting it away for college. I saved a lot of money. The deal was that for every dollar I earned in baby sitting 50 cents was mine and 50 cents went into the savings account in the bank. And with the 50 cents I could go to the movies. I could save it up and buy records which I did a lot. Phonograph records were very important. And I could buy the material so my mother could make special clothes for me. Still it was a great deal. But in any event, I was packing to go to college and ..... MS. WILLARD: Did you know when you graduated from high school, did you have any idea at that point what you thought you might like to ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes . MS. WILLARD: . . . . . major in? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes. MS. WILLARD: What was it? MS. SCHAIBLE: I was going to be a diplomat.

MS. WILLARD: Ah.

MS. SCHAIBLE: I was going into the U.S. Foreign Service. And so my college career was all centered around that. And ..... MS. WILLARD: And what led you to that path? 109 MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, it meant I'd be able to go outside of the United States, I'd be able to travel, and it just sounded terribly glamorous. Yes, it was just, you know, oh, such a thing to do. MS. WILLARD: Where did you pick it up? I'm really curious. MS. SCHAIBLE: I don't know where I picked it up. It was just a career choice. MS. WILLARD: Yes. MS. SCHAIBLE: And the funny thing is I must have talked about it a lot because in the year book was what we were going to be doing in life. I was a diplomat assigned to work in the Soviet Union and spending my time with Stalin. That was what was in the year book. Because, from earliest memories, you know, children, young children want to be nurses or doctors or -- no, we didn't want to be doctors, that was what the boys wanted. The girls wanted to be nurses. I really wanted to be a fireman and I was told that it was a no-no, no women went for fireman. But in any event, I don't know how I came about this desire to be in the foreign service. But I'm packing for college. And in those days most people sent their trunks ahead, so I had my mother's trunk and that she had brought with her from Sweden and packed that trunk and we shipped it off by boat to Seward and by train to College. And then someone lugged it up the hill. 110 MS. WILLARD: And when you say college you mean College, the College town, right? MS. SCHAIBLE: College, the Station. MS. WILLARD: Yes.

MS. SCHAIBLE: I got to the dorm and they had put me on the third floor of the women's residence. And I said, you know, I don't 1 ike walking upstairs that much. And they said okay, we' re just finishing this room downstairs. The women's residence hall at the university had been an Army hospital during the war. War over. They were busy reconverting it into a women's residence hall. And they finally got mine converted and I moved downstairs which was a lot more comfortable ..... MS. WILLARD: Yes. MS. SCHAIBLE: ..... for me. MS. SCHAIBLE: Now you said the geography? MS. SCHAIBLE: This is women's residence hall. It's called Wickersham Hall named for one of our delegates to Congress and the man who got the land grant for the college and was there at the dedication of the land grant for the university. MS. WILLARD: And it's located in College? MS. SCHAIBLE: It's located in College ..... MS. WILLARD: Which is?

MS. SCHAIBLE: A neighbor to Fairbanks. And College, they don't call it College anymore. It's a zip code of Fairbanks, but it was a regular post office there, I mean they 111 still have a post office in the area of the university, but the University of Alaska was formerly named the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines and became the university in 1935. And it's located in this community that was just called College. It wasn't incorporated. It was just a separate community. But I get on the campus. I fly from Anchorage -- from Juneau to Anchorage to Fairbanks. Alaska Airlines wanting to get their foothold in Southeastern Alaska offered round trip fare for the price of one way, so I took advantage of this fine offer. And I flew into Anchorage and the Westward Hotel was managed by one of my brother's best friends and so I stayed there and got to see Anchorage. There were three hotels, the Anchorage Hotel, the Westward Hotel and the Parson's. And that's it. That's the entire hotel ..... MS. WILLARD: Was that your first flight? MS. SCHAIBLE: No.

MS. WILLARD: Oh. MS. SCHAIBLE: No, my first flight was from Sitka to Juneau. But in any event, I got on the campus and well, I arrived in Fairbanks early in the morning. I left my 1 uggage someplace and went into -- no, I took my luggage with me and left it at a taxi stand, I think, and I wanted to wait in town until the bank opened so I could open my account in the bank. 112 And I ran into some friends who were on their honeymoon. They had just been married in Juneau a couple of weeks before and had been at Circle Hot Springs for their honeymoon and they came back to Fairbanks and I ran into them in the co-op which is a drug store plus everything else·. They had a little eating place there and I ran into them there 'cause I was going to have breakfast and we visited for awhile and then it was time for the bank to open and I went to the bank, opened my account, went back to the taxi stand, got a taxi to take me out to the campus of the university which in those days was about a five mile drive. And got me onto the campus. And I looked at the building that I was supposed to stay in and thought, oh, this isn't going to work. It was a grey concrete building that looked like as if it should have been painted 20 years ago and wasn't and they were digging a ditch right in front of it. And so I got out with my luggage which wasn't all that great, looked at that hole in the ditch and thought oh, just take me back, I'm going home. And at that point a friend of mine, a classmate of mine appeared out of the men's dorm and said where have you been? And I said well, I had to open my bank account. And he said oh, you' re in deep trouble. I said how can I be in trouble I just arrived? And he got me into the dorm and showed me where my room was up on the third floor. And then he said I want you to come meet my girlfriend. Okay, I'll come meet your girlfriend. She works in 113 the registrar's office and the registrar has been waiting for you. I don't know the registrar, how could she be waiting for me? And so we went to the registrar's office. I met Jane. And we have remained lifelong friends. I met Jane and the registrar said we expected you a couple of days ago, the president has been asking for you. And I said I'm arriving just on schedule.

And she said well, we got the wrong information. We heard you were to be here two days ago and that's what we told the president and he's been asking for you, so you'd better get right down to see him. Where's his office? Just right down at the end of the hall, don't worry. So I walked down to the end of the hall and walk into the office and his secretary's sitting there and I said I'm Grace Berg. Where have you been? The president's been asking for you. I said well, I'm here according to my schedule. And so she knocked on the door and out walks Dr. Bunnell. And his first thing is where have you been? You were supposed to be here two days ago. And I said I'm here on my schedule. What's this I was supposed to be here two days ago, why? And he said well, you need to get over and seen Dean Duckering, you're his secretary now. And I said I hadn't planned on working. And he said what do you mean you hadn't planned on working? A.B. Phillips said you were the best secretary he ever had, you've got to be working. No, I'm here to study. And he said no, you go over and tell Dean Duckering you're not going to be his 114 secretary. Where's his office? And he said that building, it was the main building, the main classroom building on the campus. And I walked over there and walked up the front steps and walked into the building and found Dean Duckering's office and walked in and said I'm Grace Berg. And he said sit down. And I -­ thank you, so I sat down. And he said I'm so pleased you're here. We've been waiting for you. And when can you start to work? I said I hadn't planned on working, you know, I'm going to be a student. And he said I just desperately need a secretary, just desperate. Will you do it just for a few days? Maybe, but I have to find out what you pay. And he said 75 cents an hour. And I said I haven't worked for that little money since I baby sat. And I said I don't think so. You know, he said well, what have you been earning? And I told him. And I said my father always paid me $3 an hour when I was still in high school, come on. You don't really expect me to work for 75 cents an hour? And he said oh, well, that's what we pay students. And I said you pay students 75 cents an hour to push a broom. You pay students 75 cents an hour to fill water glasses. You don't pay me 75 cents an hour to type without mistakes. Oh, okay. Well, we'll figure out something and he sat there. Then he wrote things down. Said I can double it to a dollar and a half an hour. Oh, well, just for a few days, so I did it for a few days. And he just -- he really needed help. And after a few days he said by the way, the dean of the School of Mines needs 115 help. And I said okay, but you know, if I stay I'm only going to be able to work 10 hours a week, two hours a day. That's all. Hum, I don't think you'll get all the work done in two hours a day. And we finally worked a deal that I worked 20 hours a week. MS. WILLARD: In addition to your classes? MS. SCHAIBLE: In addition to my classes. And I finally got a raise to $2 an hour. But I did that for two years. Worked as -- I was the secretary to the faculty, to the dean of the School of Mines and to the dean of the university as he was called. And the only time that they had to hire outside help was for someone to type the exams. They wouldn't let me type my own exam. I could type other exams, you know, that weren't mine, but they hired outside help to do the exams for the classes I was taking. MS. WILLARD: And you were taking a full load? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, I was taking -- I think I was only taking 16 hours that time. MS. WILLARD: What type of courses were you taking? MS. SCHAIBLE: What were they called? Well, I was taking Russian I, first year Russian. I was taking a class in economic geography. English. Composition and rhetoric, English composition and rhetoric. And I can't remember what else I was taking, but it was a full course. And working 20 hours a week. MS. WILLARD: It doesn't sound like you had much time for anything else. 116 MS. SCHAIBLE: Every evening after dinner I was at the library because the room that I had in the dorm was very noisy because the people on the first floor all had to pass my room. All the people on the second and third floor had to pass my room to get out of the building. And so it was quite a noisy place and it was best for me to be in the library studying. And the women's residents had to be in the dorm at 10:00 o'clock, that's when the library closed. The men could be any place they wanted to be, but women, no. We had to be in at 10:00 o'clock. On weekends it was, I think, Friday night was 11:00 and Saturday night was midnight, but Sunday through Thursday 10:00 o'clock. MS. WILLARD: And checked in and locked in? MS. SCHAIBLE: Yeah, uh-hum. But it was a great place. I went home for Christmas and flew with Pan American because it was a direct -- well, more direct flight than going through Anchorage. Didn't take nearly as long. We flew from Fairbanks to Whitehorse to Juneau with Pan American. And went home for Christmas and had a wonderful time. The Alaska Spruce Log Program that I had worked with when I was with the Forest Service needed to hire somebody to close the books- for the half year. And I was the only one who knew where the files were so I got hired during my Christmas vacation to close out Alaska Spruce Log Program which was nice. Coming back we had a problem, and I can't remember exactly how it worked out, but we could fly from Juneau to 117 Whitehorse with Pan American, but we had to wait for the plane from Seattle to come to Whitehorse to take us on to Fairbanks. And there were a group of us from Juneau and Douglas that were coming back. And that year, I can't -- no, that wasn't the year. It was another year that we were coming back and we got stuck in Whitehorse and in the meantime the power plant had burned the telephone exchange in Fairbanks and there was no telephone service and we were coming in, but that was my next year, the next year. But in any event, I had a wonderful time working and the only problem was that they got a physical education instructor the second semester and so I had to take P.E. 'cause you're required to have P.E. And so I went and they decided that they were going to create gymnasts out of all of us, a crazy idea for someone who'd never done anything. And so this P. E. teacher insiste_d that I learn to leap ov~r the horse. Well, it resulted in a little bit of a problem. I was in considerable pain, didn't know what had happened. Went to the doctor and well, what is it. And he said it sounds like appendicitis. And I said I haven't got one. Mine was taken out when I was five years old and -- five or six, but -- and he said oh, well, let me give you something to relieve the pain and we'll just sort of watch. And so I went back out and the nurse on the campus watched. The pain was relieved somewhat but then came back immediately. And the next thing I knew they were hospitalizing me and couldn't figure out what it was. And finally the doctor said 118 and his name was Schaible. The doctor said I think we have to do a laparotomy on you. And I said what's that? And he said we have to open you up and see what's going on. And so I called my folks and said I'm going into the hospital. They' re going to do exploratory surgery on me. My mother freaks out. And I said you'd better send up some money from my savings account. I haven't any idea what it's going to be, but send $1,000 up and have it put in my account at the bank. And I said make certain they get it right this time because they'd put it in some other Berg's account at another bank, not my parents, but whoever was doing the transmitting out of Behrend's Bank in Juneau. But in any event, I went in the hospital. They opened me up and what had happened in leaping over the horses I had pulled adhesions from my surgery as a child and I was a bloody mess inside. And so in any event, they did that and then they found at the same time they found a hemorrhagic cyst on my right ovary. And they had to take it out to have it checked, you know, did a complete biopsy on it because they thought of cancer, you know, I was too young for that, but they did check it. I was not. It was just a regular hemorrhagic cyst and there was nothing wrong. But I had a bad habit of moaning in my sleep. And in the hospital after I came out of surgery I was moaning and they thought I was still in pain, so they kept giving me morphine. And I was out for several days, three days with this morphine. And finally, a couple of my friends came in and said you know, we've been around 119 Grace when she sleeps and we've heard her moan in her sleep. I don't think that she's in pain. Oh, so they quit the Morphine and I woke up and gas pains unbelievable because, you know, they didn't feed me when I was in this induced coma. And I was just very uncomfortable. And the doctor came in and said sorry about this, but I told them to give you morphine because you were moaning and they assumed you were in pain arid found out that you weren't. In any event, he said you'll be well enough to go back to the dorm and resume classes pretty soon. It was another day or so I was back in the dorm and resumed classes. I went to two days of classes and I was just riddled with pain again. What on earth is going on with me? And the biology teacher was sent over to consult with the nurse. The biology teacher was a friend of the doctor's, and so they came over and examined me. And the nurse said in consultation with the biology teacher she's got to go back to the hospital. And I went back to the hospital and they finally decided that I had a very peculiar post-operative infection. And I lay there a couple of days. And I can't remember the terminology for it now, but it was like this encapsulated infection that just kept growing inside the scar. And the doctor came in and said well, not much I can do yet. I'm not giving you any more morphine so you're going to have to just sit it out. And I said yeah, I'm lying here in bed sitting it out. 120 He was all dressed up really neat looking and I said well, you must have a hot date. And he said, yeah, I think I do and left. And I was lying there in my bed in pain cursing this doctor. And about an hour and a half later he was back. And I said oh, your date was a dud? And he said worse than that, she was impossible. And then I thought of you lying here in the bed in pain and we decided I'm going to do something about that right now. Called in a couple of nurses. Draped me. And I could just barely see over the top of the draps. And he said you're not going to feel this cut because you're already in such pain, but I'm making an incision in the old wound, in the old scar. And he said, I expect to relieve the pressure which he did. And it went all over him. He was a really yucky mess. And I said that'll cure you from leaving a patient in pain when you go off on a date. Then, it was much better. I felt much better. And then he stayed for awhile. And then he said what's your principal study at the university? And I said well, Russian and history. And he said, what's that combination? And I said I'm going to be in the diplomatic service. And he said you're a history major though, what's the importance of that? And I said you've got to know what's happened before you can figure out what's going to happen. He said if you're a history major now you can tell me what happened in 1066. Oh, criminey. I don't need to play games. And I said yeah, Battle of Hastings, invasion of England by William the Conqueror. And oh, okay. Then what happened in such and such 121 a year? And we went on like that. And I finally said I need to sleep so he left. Well, I then went back out to the campus and went back to classes almost immediately. Got caught up on all my studies. They said no more physical education for you. They were lucky I wasn't going to sue them. And although in those days we didn't talk about litigation all that much. But in any event I went back to classes and finished the school year. And ..... MS. WILLARD: So that was your freshman year? MS. SCHAIBLE: That was my freshman year. MS. WILLARD: And not an uneventful one. MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, it's a lot of time in the hospital, but anyway I went home for the summer. And I think I went back to work for the Forest Service that summer. No, I didn't. I went back to work for the Forest Service for six weeks or maybe it was two, maybe it was two months because we got out early. Then my parents said that doctor in Fairbanks obviously doesn't know what he's doing, so we're going to send you Outside to be checked by a doctor that your sister knows. She was in nursing school and so I went back out and checked. And the doctor said I don't see why you're here, everything's perfectly fine with you. MS. WILLARD: So you went to Seattle? 122 MS. SCHAIBLE: I went to Seattle and went to a doctor that my sister had worked with in her nursing program. And then a friend of mine, one of my -- she wasn't a classmate, she was ahead of my in college, but she came to Seattle. And then she'd never been to Victoria and Vancouver and so we did that trip. And we stayed at the Empress in Victoria and we stayed in the Hotel Vancouver and then we caught the Princess ship to Juneau, Princess Louise. And then we flew together to Anchorage. And by that time I was bringing things to the university that I'd had printed in Juneau because it was cheaper to print them in Juneau than it was in Fairbanks, so I was carrying back all kinds of stuff, printed material. MS. WILLARD: So that takes us to the end of your freshman year in the summer in between. I think that this probably would be a good place to stop. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, boy, are we going to finish in one more session? MS. WILLARD: One more session? I doubt it. This is just too good. So why don't we wrap it up for today and then we'll continue in a month from now. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. (Off record)

(END OF PROCEEDINGS) f

VOLUME III

INTERVIEW OF GRACE BERG SCHAIBLE November 21, 2006

/. ~-. 123

P R O C E E D I N G S

MS. WILLARD: We've switched to the other tape. That one looked like it was running two fast. God knows what we've got.

We'll just have to deal with it. [A PORTION OF THE RECORDING WAS LOST.]

MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay.

MS. WILLARD: Go ahead. MS. SCHAIBLE: But in any event, my sister-in-law was a music teacher and the apartment that they rented had two Grand pianos in it. MS. WILLARD: Oh, my goodness. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yeah. It was a huge apartment. Beautiful view. All the woods, Tongass Narrows. And it was a very comfortable place to be. MS. WILLARD: Before we leave Ketchikan, you' re ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: And then I left Ketchikan at the end of the construction season. But my brother really didn't ..... MS. WILLARD: Let's not leave that part yet. Because you and I know who Bob Ziegler is. MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. MS. WILLARD: And I think it would be good if you explained who the senator was. MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, Bob Ziegler -- well, I'll talk about his father first. MS. WILLARD: Yes. 124 MS. SCHAIBLE: A.H. Ziegler, long time old style attorney in Ketchikan. And a very political animal. They always said that A.H. Ziegler would sneeze and Charlie Jones in Nome would catch the cold. Or Charlie Jones would open the Rice Krispies and A.H. Ziegler in Ketchikan would say don't make all that noise. But he was a founding member of the law firm of Ketchikan. His son went off to law school, came back. In fact I met him before he had taken the · Bar exam. But later he was a state senator from Ketchikan. Just an absolutely delightful person. One of the people that I admired from day one. MS. WILLARD: So when you left ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Left Ketchikan, I went back to Juneau. It is now 1950. Korean War had started. I was in Ketchikan. And my brother was crossing his fingers that he wasn't going to be called back into active service because he knew the Far East far too well. But he wasn't. And he could manage the things because they -- you know, crews were very small in the wintertime. Just the maintenance or equipment. And so I went back to Juneau and called on my friends in the Forest Service and found out what jobs were available. And they didn't have anything really right on the ticket, you know. And so I inquired around and pretty soon there was an opportunity to work with the Federal Housing Administration, which I did. And I had a very uncomfortable feeling all the time I was working there that things were not aboveboard. Are you having problems with that machine? 125 MS. WILLARD: I'm wondering. The reel is running but before -- I guess it's okay. There go the lights. When I'm closer to it I can see them flashing. So I think we're okay. MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. MS. WILLARD: I'd hate to do this all over again. MS. SCHAIBLE: But in any event, I was very uncomfortable not knowing really what was going on in the office. I'd hear bits and pieces that didn't sound quite right. And one of the sponsors of a federal housing project in Alaska was a company named Chris Berg, Inc. And I just joked oh -- they said are you related and I said oh, sure, that's my Uncle Chrissie. No relation whatsoever. And at a Christmas party that was not held in the office but outside the office, I was given a toy Cadillac. Cute little toy Cadillac as a Christmas gift from Uncle Chrissie. Well, that turned out not to be so funny as there was a big investigation of the office. I had left the office because they refused to give me time off to take my mother to the hospital in Seattle so I quit. And right after that this investigation started. And a couple of people lost their jobs, including the head of the office and a couple of the underwriters. No, not the underwriters. The underwriters were okay. It was the inspectors who took bribes. And then my father got a call from the -- from Washing­ ton, D.C. from a man who used to live in Juneau and knew my father.

And said, you know, we've been investigating the FHA office in Juneau and your daughter used to work there. And we have a report 126 that she received a very substantial gift from one of the sponsors. Of course, my father rose up and said she never received any kind of gift from anybody, but what's it all about? And they said well, Chris Berg is your cousin. No, Chris Berg is no relation. Oh, well, we had understood that he was a cousin or a brother or something. That she had said, you know, that was her Uncle Chrissie and that he gave her a Cadillac.

My father got a hold of me right away and said, you know, I got this call, and I can't remember the name of the man in Washington, D.C., but my father knew him. And said what's this about Chris Berg giving you a Cadillac. And I said, dad, I showed it to you. It's that little blue thing that's sitting in my room. Oh. Well, he said I'm going to call that man back and tel~ him. But it was a very uncomfortable period in my life because I wasn't used to seeing or hearing about bribery in government offices. That was something that just had never happened when I worked for the BIA or the Forest Service. But in any event, I had returned from Seattle taking my mother out to the hospital and was again looking for a job. Because I was saving money to go to graduate school and I needed to work. \ And of course Frank Heintzleman said I told you I didn't want you to work there. He said we knew there was something tricky going on, but he said there was nothing we could do. And so -- Frank Heintzleman being the head of the Forest Service at that time. And so I went to interview for the Office of Price ..... MS. WILLARD: Administration? 127 MS. SCHAIBLE: No. Office -- OPA was the first one. So OPS, Office of Price Stabilization. That was during the Korean War. And the head of it was a man from Wrangell, Fred, whose last name I can't remember now. But he was a Wrangell man and just a really nice person. And he said yeah, he'd love to have me as his administrative assistant. So -- which meant a bump up in salary, which was very nice. And so I took the job and worked there until I went off to graduate school. MS. WILLARD: Okay. And when did you go to graduate school? MS. SCHAIBLE: That would have been 1952. MS. WILLARD: And where? MS. SCHAIBLE: At George Washington University, Washington, D.C. MS. WILLARD: What motivated you to go there and ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, I had met this professor when I was there as an undergraduate and he was a specialist on the pre-territorial history of both Alaska and Hawaii. He knew all the transitions from the Russian era in Alaska up until--well, actually, the first Organic Act. But he went on beyond that to the territorial status. And the same thing in Hawaii, the period that it was sort of independent from the time that there was the overthrow of the royal family until it became a territory. Their period was not as long as ours because it became a territory right after we did, I think, in 1913. But that's why I wanted to go 128 back. He was just a real specialist and he wanted me to be able to work on territorial activities. And ..... MS. WILLARD: So what degree were you .....

MS. SCHAIBLE: A Masters. MS. WILLARD: In what? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, a Masters in history. MS. WILLARD: Okay.

MS. SCHAIBLE: And because my undergraduate was a combined degree in history and political science, they insisted that I needed to take three history courses as the equivalent of an undergraduate. But it was an undergraduate school, but that I needed to have three extra courses. Which meant that I, you know, was not going to be there for one year, I was going to be there for two, which was okay. And really wonderful professors. I just adored them. They were just all great. The head of the department had taught me as an undergrad- uate but he didn't teach me as a graduate. But he overlooked -­ looked over everything I was doing. And the international specialist, an amazing man, born and raised in Beirut. His family, his mother's family had lived there for a long time. Americans that had lived there for a long time. And his father was a professor at the American university in Beirut. And he spoke languages kazoo. I mean he spoke Arabic, spoke Ri t Arabic, Russian, German, French, Spanish, Italian, English. He was just absolutely fabulous. And he just couldn't understand that anybody didn't speak at least two languages. 129 But he just had a great imagination, and so the big assignment that I had with him on international diplomacy was to -­ he assigned the French and English public opinion of the Hitler Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. I said I don't read French. He said okay, you have a job of all of the English newspapers in the Library of Congress, which at that time were the Jefferson building. And that's what I did. I took my little portable typewriter and sat there reading newspapers until I got enough information. And my regular professor decided he was going to concentrate on the Civil War. And he was taking the Confederate side of the Civil War and all the diplomacy involved in the Civil War. And because I came from Alaska they assigned me to the Court at St. Petersburg. And of course my Confederate commissioner never got there. But he was quite a famous man. Probably never heard of him. Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar. After Reconstruction he was the first reconstructed Confederate elected as a senator from Mississippi. Reconciliation plus. During the -- I don't remember who was president at that time, but 1884, the date of Alaska's first Organic Act, he was the Secretary of the Interior. And later a Justice of the Supreme Court. And so I did my major study on him. Was lucky enough to be able to get books out of the Library of Congress through our congressional delegate Bob Bartlett. So I really had a wonderful time. MS. WILLARD: Sounds like it was. 130 MS. SCHAIBLE: It was absolutely fabulous. I still went to concerts at the National Gallery of Art. And, you know, I specialized as an usher at Lizner Auditorium because they were doing some things again with Constitution Hall so they couldn't use it. And so they substituted Lizner Auditorium, which is right on the campus at George Washington University, and got free entrance to performances. But it was just a really wonderful time. And this was about the time the Alaska Statehood Committee was getting underway, and so when they would come to town I would usually have an opportunity to visit with them. MS. WILLARD: Were you working on a thesis at ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. MS. WILLARD: ..... that point?

MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. My thesis was 1920 to 1932, The Years of Neglect. And it was a study of basically what was going on in both the Territorial Legislature and the U.S. Congress with regard to subjects pertaining to Alaska transportation, resource development. I can't remember all of them. There were about four topics that I was covering in depth. And a lot of it was just reading newspapers in the Territorial Library in Juneau. I'd go home for the summer and work. I didn't work for money, I worked to get this stuff done. MS. WILLARD: What were your goals at that time while you were working your way through this program? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, originally my goal was to teach on a college level. And I was looking for graduate fellowships. 131 And the one I wanted, there was just no chance of getting it because the professor I wanted to work with was in the process of moving from Stanford and Stanford wasn't about to give me anything. And one of my professors I had talked to -- I can't remember his name now, but he was a wonderful southern historian at Johns Hopkins. And we talked on the telephone and he said that I understand that your principal interest is in overseas expansion. He said I'm only interested in the south. Do you think you can adapt? And I said I'm not sure that I can. So he said well, I'd like to make you an offer but if you don't think you can adapt there's no point. So, okay, that was out. I'm going to go home and earn money and I'm going to go to Stanford and see what they've got. And I went back to Alaska after the two years and my first task was to get that thesis polished and ready to go. And my parents were living in Petersburg that summer, so I went to Petersburg where my mother said you come here, I'll fix all the meals, you will have all the quiet you want, you can get everything done. So I went to Petersburg and in one month I got that thing polished to the point where I could take it back to Juneau and do the final typing and ship it off. And I got home and there was a message from the universi­ ty to -- I can't remember who I was to call, but somebody at the university and talked with them and they said we want you to go for an interview with the newly formed Alaska Legislative Council. And I said why? And they said they need a research analyst and you're 132 the only graduate of the university we can think of that would qualify. So oh, okay. Well, I went off to the law library and took out the session laws and looked at the budget and thought unh-unh, I can earn more money typing or being an administrative assistant than I can being a research analyst. But I will go for the interview and give them the bad news. And I went to the interview and said, you know, I just don't think that this is going to be right for me. I am saving money, you know, to go on and get a Ph.D. and I can't afford to work for you. He said what do you mean you can't afford to work for me? And I said well, I looked at the budget. And he said yes? And he said, you know, it's now October. Um-hum. And that budget started months ago. Oh, okay, well, let's sit down and talk about it. And he wanted to know what my experience was. And of course I handed him the first draft of my thesis. And he was pleased with it. I did show ability to research. And then we just talked about what the responsibilities were. He was the director, I was the staff. MS. WILLARD: What was his name? MS. SCHAIBLE: Jack McKay. He was the first director of the Alaska Legislative Council. And I was the first staff. And so we got along beautifully. I told him that I was a good typist. That I would do drafts but I wouldn't do finished products anymore. And so he said fine, we have money to hire a part-time typist. And we hired the former secretary of the senate, Mrs. Grisham, and she just loved doing the work. And we got along 133 fine. And met with the council and turned out that Paul Robison was the chair. Wendell Kay and Paul Robison had been the people who introduced the legislation to create the council. Paul Robison having the experience because he was from Kansas and Kansas was the state with the first legislative council. But it was just great fun. I got to know Charlie Jones. I'd known him just very briefly because his son graduated in my class at the University of Alaska. But there was just a lot of people that I got to know as a result of that. MS. WILLARD: Maybe you could explain just briefly who those three gentlemen were? MS. SCHAIBLE: What? MS. WILLARD: Yes. This Paul and Wendell and Charlie, explain ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, Paul Robison and Wendell Kay had been law partners in Anchorage when they both came to Alaska. When they first came. And both very able attorneys. Extremely able attorneys. And good fun. Good fun. They broke up their law practice but they remained good friends. And Paul practiced alone for a while, and I can't remember -- Bud Tulin. I don't remember who else. Some Scots or Irish name. MS. WILLARD: Robison, Mccaskey.

MS. SCHAIBLE: Mccaskey, yes. But in any event, they were just great people to work with. And then, you know, we'd be assigned projects by the council that needed to be researched. And Jack would do a lot of it and I would do a lot of it. And then 134 the product was given to the legislative council and if they didn't like something they would tell us and we'd have to defend it. And got quite good at defending my own research. But in any event it went on. And then all of a sudden we were starting to prepare for the 1955 session of the Legislature. And at that point it was -- you know, we redesigned the session laws so that they were easier to find and to read and put an index

in, which had never been there. We looked around and started

hiring staff. We didn't have to hire the chief clerk of the House or the secretary of the Senate. Those were hired by the body. But we had to hire the scut workers. You know, the people who did the rnimeographic and did the typing and all that kind of thing. And so we started hiring. And we were moved out of the territorial -- you know, the

federal building which was the territorial capital. We were moved out of that building and over to another building, which was fine. You know, it was a lot quieter. And I didn't have to put up with the legislators popping in all the time. All of a sudden we were in a legislative session and they were having me draft bills, like

I knew what in blue blazes I was doing. And they gave me an easy assignment. The children of Alaska had selected the little Ptarmigan as the Alaska bird. And so they wanted to have the official naming of the Alaska bird. That was my job. Well, all I had to do is go find out some other initial filing and I copied it and did fine. No problem. But that 135 became session law number one. It was introduced by Daras Sweeney and that was easy. It was a great thing and I started thinking what am I doing, drafting legislation. And I don't know what I'm doing. Ed Merdes and Henry Camarot were working in the Territorial Attorney General's office and they had the prime responsibility for drafting Bills. But neither one of them was very experienced. Jack McKay was more experienced in drafting legislation than the two of them. And so we saw a lot of them as they would be picking Jack's brains about the best way to say something. So two more attorneys that I met in the process. Well, the '55 session was suddenly upon us and there we were~ I had the only desk that locked. Had a drawer that locked, so I was asked to always lock away the House Appropriation Bill. The Senate didn't really draft an Appropriation Bill. The Senate Finance Committee didn't draft it, they looked at what the House had done pretty much. And so every day at the end of the day the chairman would bring me the bill and I'd put it in my desk drawer and lock it, take the key home. And then the first thing in the morning I'd unlock it and give it to the chairman again. It was very, very informal. And I just, you know, sort of kept up. And I decided well, maybe I should go to law school and come back to Alaska as the executive director. Because Jack wasn't going to stay there forever. I knew that. And so I decided to apply. Well, I decided to explore. And I explored three because I had sort of a boyfriend in the east who wanted me to come back to 136 the east coast. And Columbia, Harvard, Yale. My father objected to Columbia. He said he really didn't want his daughter living that close to Harlem. He didn't know enough about Harlem but what he'd heard about it, no. Okay, dad, that's fine. Harvard? Yeah, that sounds pretty good. Alaska woman goes to Harvard. Tom Stewart, who was a life-long friend of our family, said you don't want to go to Harvard. You want to go to Yale. Harvard has only graduated two classes with women in them. Yale has graduated many classes. In fact, the first one was in the 1870s. And almost every year since the turn of the century, since 1900, there's been a woman in classes and professors are used to it. And they do not demean women. MS. WILLARD: How did Tom know that? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, he was a Yale law school graduate. But before he'd gone to Yale his first year was at Tufts. And he'd heard nothing but bad things about the way that women were treated. So in any event, Tom suggested that I apply to Yale. And I was only going to apply to one. And so I sent my application into Yale and got accepted. And it was really kind of neat because I got a call from Burke Riley and Tom Stewart, who were together working on legisla­ tion a lot. And said that they needed to confer with me on a redraft of something. I can't remember what it was. Anyway, would I please come over to the gallery. And as soon as they were at ease they would talk to me. 137 And so I went over to the gallery and sat there, and pretty soon Wendell Kay said, I'm calling it at ease duty and you're not to leave the room because I have an announcement to make. And I thought oh, god, why can't I leave? And he said I just want the members of the body to know that Grace Berg had been selected as an entering person in Yale Law School. I couldn't talk her into Northwestern. But that's how I got to law school. MS. WILLARD: Perhaps you could give just a brief encapsulation of Judge Stewart's record which is phenomenal. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. Well, Tom Stewart was born and raised in Juneau. He graduated with my brother and sister from high school in Juneau. He was a great skier. Served in the Army Mountain Corps, Ski Corps, whatever they called it during the second World War. After the war he went to Tufts. I don't know where he did his undergraduate work, quite honestly. I don't know that. But he went to Tufts and then transferred to Yale law school. And it was in that great returning class produced some of the outstanding leaders of the law, particularly those in govern­ ment policy and the law. But he came back to Alaska and practiced a solo practitioner in Juneau. And then he was when statehood came he was selected -- oh, it was before statehood, I guess. Yeah. He was elected to work with the administration of the court system. MS. WILLARD: He was chair of the Constitutional Convention, wasn't he? MS. SCHAIBLE: No. 138 MS. WILLARD: No, it was Bill Egan? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, yes. Well, then Tom went into the Legislature. Served in the Legislature and was a sponsor of the legislation calling a constitutional convention, which incidentally was unusual in that the whole voting system for the delegates to the constitutional convention was so totally differ­ ent. It was based on some study that I had done for the legisla­ tive council trying to create different voting districts. And we used the old recording districts as the method of doing it. But Tom used that as the basis for his method selecting delegates. And then he was the -- oh, what was the title that he had? Wasn't secretary. But he was the chief administrative officer of the constitutional convention. And he organized the convention to the extent that he had all of the top people in the United States come as consultants and serve as consultants. And he learned very early on that the best place for the convention was at a university. And so the convention was held in Fairbanks, because the only university at that time was the University of Alaska located in Fairbanks. Or a college. The university had just about completed a new building that was to be a student union building, now called Constitution Hall. And the students didn't get to use it immediately because the constitutional convention took over. The constitutional convention started in November 1955 and finished in February of 1956. But Tom had a remarkable career just -- you know, he had problems with the Bar Association as a result of his working with 139 the court system. But that all got smoothed over eventually. And he was named to the Superior Court and has been a senior judge forever. He comes to Fairbanks still occasionally if things get tight here. And I think he's served in every court in Alaska. I think it's probably every court. Every Superior Court in Alaska. And he has served as a senior judge. But he remains very active and was recently honored, some national honor for the work that he did with the constitutional convention. MS. WILLARD: So off you went to Yale? MS. SCHAIBLE: Off I went to Yale. And I lived in a women's residence home which had been a former fraternity house. And not only Yale the law school students, but there was a mixture of law school and music school. And some of the music school at Yale was an undergraduate as well as a graduate school.

We had maybe two women from the graduate school, but most of them were from the law school or the music school. And, you know, it was a very comfortable arrangement. It was just a couple blocks from the law school on a nice leafy street. It was very

comfortable. And we had cooking facilities. We had little shelves where we kept our dishes and our cooking equipment and I really thought that was just something. The very first day that I was there I walked into the quad where they were having a reception for the incoming class. And the first person I met came up and introduced himself, a nice young man. He said I'm Loring Heckman. I said the hell you are. 140 You're not from Alaska. And he said no, but how did you know that? And I said your name, Loring is the name of a place. And he said yes, I know that. And Heckman is the name of a dock. And he yes, I know that. My father was Loring Heckman and he was born in Loring. Just, you know -- and we became good friends. And we remained good friends throughout law school. But he was the first of that class to die. And I just felt so badly because here was this man with tremendous promise who would have made -- you know, had a marvelous career. I really felt so badly about that. Well, classes started and I felt as lost as any human being can be. I thought oh, what am I doing here? I don't belong here. And I'd come out of a class, I'd go to the coffee room and -- I don't drink coffee, and I would be looking for something to drink and it was usually soda pop. And I'd sit there. It was just like oh, God, I don't know what I'm going to do. And this nice young man, not Loring Heckman, but another one, came down and introduced himself and he said I'm Guy Cali­ brisi. I said you're who? And he said I say Guy but it's really Guido. I said Guido Calibrisi sounds better to me, thank you. And he said what's your problem? And I said oh, I just came out of that contracts class feeling like number one idiot in the world. And he said you're not. He said it's just confusing the first few days. And I said but you're an entering person also, how come? And he said

I've been around the law school all my life. My father's a French professor here. He said, -- and then I found out that he had been 141 at Fulbright. I don't think he'd been a Rhodes. I think he was just a Fulbright scholar. But anyway, he later became the dean of law school. But, he never forgot that crazy lady from Alaska. But, it finally became less dense and I was getting along okay. Comes final exams, I am deathly ill. I get sick right in the middle of an exam and they have to haul me out. And I thought boy, this is some kind of a message to me. And I went to the doctor and he said you have a low grade infection and it is upsetting your whole intestinal tract. I would suggest that you not try to take the rest of your exams. I said I've got to take them, give me something that will make me feel better. He tried. And I got well enough to take a couple more exams, but the one exam that I didn't finish I had to take later. Then I decided this just -- I wasn't feeling well. And so I quit. I was three weeks into the next term and I said no, I'm. going home. And, fortunately, my parents were in Arizona, as they usually were in the winter, and I got home and the minute I got home I started feeling better. And the next thing I knew Jack McKay was on the phone, we need you. So I went back to work for the Legislative Council. Jack McKay left in a couple of months after that and I was the acting director with a large staff. MS. WILLARD: This would have been in 1956? MS. SCHAIBLE: 1956. Yes. But I kept in touch with people in New Haven. Then they said to me, you've got to come back, we've admitted you to Yale Law School, we're not going to let 142 you go. So I went back. But I was with another class and had to meet all kinds of new people again and say bye-bye to my friends in the other class. But they didn't forget me. A lot of us remained friends anyway. And then, I finished in January. Got married in December and finished in January. MS. WILLARD: We'll get to that story. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. MS. WILLARD: How many were in that initial class at Yale? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, traditionally it's about 162. Between 162 and 165.

MS. WILLARD: Do you remember how many were women? MS. SCHAIBLE: In my entering class there were 13. The largest entering class in the history of the law school. And the professors were just wonderful. They'd never do anything. Well, there was one professor who, in order not to have women in one of his really good classes, would have them meet at Morey's where they don't let women in except one day a year. And that's the day of Harvard-Yale football game. MS. WILLARD: You know, you were so fortunate because I mean we were struggling 20 years afterward ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. MS. WILLARD: ..... with professors. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. Well, no, we weren't. The worst part of it was every now and then some stupid jerk male would come up and say I really resent your sitting next to me or I really 143 resent this because my good friend from Brown, my good friend from Dartmouth, my good friend could be sitting in there. You're never going to practice law. And I'd say how do yo~ know that? And, you know, they'd sort of get nonplussed. But it was an occasional ungentlemanly gentleman that would take out after us. And pretty soon we started keeping lists of these people. MS. WILLARD: And what were you going to do with those lists? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, a couple of women who had been around longer than me would take care of it. But in any event, we didn't have any real problems with the professors. It was just the occasional student. And all 13 of the women in that entering class graduated, not at the same time. I was one of them who graduated in a different time. But there were two other women who graduated years after me. But they came back and finished. And Yale was very proud of the fact that their first large entering class all graduated. My class that I graduated with had only women in it. MS. WILLARD: How many women do you recollect were practicing law in Alaska back in those years? MS. SCHAIBLE: Mildred Hermann, Gladys Stabler. There were a couple of women who were working in the AG's office and I can't remember their names. MS. WILLARD: Was Shirley Kohl around in those ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, no. Shirley was after me. MS. WILLARD: After you. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. Wilson. 144 MS. WILLARD: Julianna. MS. SCHAIBLE: Julianna Wilson. Haaland. MS. WILLARD: Dorothy. MS. SCHAIBLE: Dorothy Haaland. Oh, Mahalia Dickerson. MS. WILLARD: Of course. What about Mildred Banfield, was she? MS. SCHAIBLE: No, she didn't practice law. MS. WILLARD: Okay. MS. SCHAIBLE: No, she wasn't a lawyer. No. Just her -- there was a couple of women -- Dorothy Tyner. MS. WILLARD: Um-hum. MS. SCHAIBLE: She was a judge here. Mary Alice Miller. But there weren't that many. There were just a -- I figured out that when I came I was the 13th women in active practice. There had been women who had been in practice and left Alaska. A couple of them. But I think I was the 13th when I was admitted to practice in 1960. MS. WILLARD: So even prior to graduation you got married. Tell us about that. Tell us about your husband.

MS. SCHAIBLE: My husband, I met professionally. He was a doctor. When I was a freshman at the University of Alaska, I had to have emergency surgery. And he took care of that. And I just got to know him when I was there as a sophomore and we went out together quite a bit. And I was gone my junior year but he wanted to be on the list of people who received my family letter, 145 which I sent him. And when I came back for my senior year he wanted to start going out. And I said no, this isn't going to work out. No. And he started calling me and I finally told him this isn't going to work, I have too many plans. I was concerned about the age difference because there was almost 20 years, 19 years difference in our ages. And then he got married. Great. Problem solved. And then when I was in graduate school he was doing some special work at the University of Pennsylvania and he and his wife were there. They came to visit me at George Washington University and I went up to Philadelphia to visit them. And everything was just fine. And then when -- what was I doing? I can't remember. But anyway, I was here in Fairbanks -- oh, I guess I was visiting Dr. Bunnell. In any event, they invited me to lunch and he was the most stuffed shirt I have ever met. And I thought oh, my God, marriage doesn't agree with you, or maybe it agrees too much. And when his wife was in the kitchen I said I'd sure like to take a big pin and put in you. And he said what do you mean? I said I have never seen such a stuffed shirt. And he just glared at me and then he roared. He just thought that was the funniest thing. Of course his wife wanted to know what it was. What had I done that amused him so much? And he said I'll tell later. When I was in law school, I had been visiting friends in Hartford. One of my first year classmates was from Hartford -- no, 146 Glastonbury just outside of Hartford. And her parents had invited me to come with her for a weekend. And I came back from that weekend, picked up my New York Times and started reading like crazy because I had missed Saturday and Sunday, And you know how your eye catches Alaska. You can be looking at a page and Alaska sort of jumps out. It was Fairbanks, Alaska professor had died in a fire and it was Arthur's wife. So, I sat down and wrote a sympathy note. She was really a wonderful person. She was a professor at the university. And so I sat down and wrote him a note. And pretty soon my phone rang. I had a phone in my room. And the phone rang and it was he. And he just wanted to know if I still did the family letter. And I said well, sure, I do. And he said well, he'd like to get back on the list. And so I sent him a copy of the family letter. And a couple of weeks later I got another phone call from him saying he was corning to New York for Christmas, would I be around? And I said no, sorry, I'm not going to be in New Haven, I'm going to be in California. And he said what are you going to do in California? I said spending time with my sister and my nephews. Oh, well, he said, maybe I could go to San Francisco and do the same things I'd be doing in New York. But in any event he came and spent Christmas with my sister's family in California. And then I went back to law school and spent the summer in Anchorage clerking again for Paul Robison. And he came down and he insisted I come up, and then he came down and it was just ..... MS. WILLARD: He wouldn't leave you alone. 147 MS. SCHAIBLE: And then he was going to come for Christmas because he knew I would be staying in New Haven for Christmas because I would be leaving in a couple of weeks after that. And so he said he would meet me in New York. And I said what makes you think I want to go to New York, I'm going to stay here in New Haven and if you want to see me you come to New Haven. And I said I want you to meet my friends. And he said I'm not sure I want to do that. And I said well, that's your choice. And so he came to New Haven, met all my friends and just had a wonderful time. Just really enjoyed meeting them. They were all prepared, you know. I had told them a lot about him. They just thought he was really nice. And then we went to New York. MS. WILLARD: Let me see if I can turn this off so we can take a break. (Off record) (On record) MS. WILLARD: Yes, we're fine. MS. SCHAIBLE: I was going to tell you that there is a place in Fairbanks that rents this equipment. But I can't remember the name of it now.

MS. WILLARD: Okay. Now, Bill at R & R said that if I -- he figured it would be fine. I told him the next two visits we were going to have. But if for some reason I can't borrow it then we'll figure that out. They're heavy to carry. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. 148 MS. WILLARD: Okay. That's where we were. So you got married.

MS. SCHAIBLE: We got married on Christmas Day in New York City at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. And ..... MS. WILLARD: Was it a big event? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, no, no. There was Mary Salisury was my attendant and Mr. Salisbury, whose name I can't remember now, was Arthur's attendant. And there was one other person there.

We were married in the side chapel of the church because I had insisted that we get married in the church, not at the magistrate's office or anything like that. And we went to interview. I had called the First Presbyterian Church in Greenwich Village, which is where I really wanted to be married, but they said we're too small

a congregation. We don't have enough assistant pastors, go to the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, which we did because they have a lot of assistant pastors. And we happened to pick one whose niece was a nurse in Fairbanks and my husband knew her. So he came in an hour early on Christmas morning to marry us. And then we went to lunch with the group and then they all disbursed because they had Christmas celebrations and we walked around New York until we had to change for dinner. And we went to dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria. And then a couple days later he left and I went back to New Haven. And with the instructions that as soon as I could I was to go get a passport, which I did, because we were going to Africa for our honeymoon. MS. WILLARD: After graduation? 149 MS. SCHAIBLE: No, after I finished my courses. Would be by the middle of January. And then the plan was that I would go to California and shop for the trip, go home to Juneau where no one knew about the marriage except my parents, and then eventually to Fairbanks and then we were to leave to go to Africa from here. MS. WILLARD: If I recollect, at that point in history there were things happening in the world. All sorts of things. Can you remember anything of any particular impact insofar as your life was concerned? Anything that stands out? MS. SCHAIBLE: Of course right after I got married Alaska became a state which was a big thing. And I don't remember following international news with all that much interest at that time. MS. WILLARD: Perhaps I should have asked this question a little earlier. I was very young, but some of the things from the '50s that I remember I suppose more than anything were like the Rosenberg trial and the McCarthy hearings. That sort of thing. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. The McCarthy hearings, yes. The Rosenberg trial, no. That was something I read about and forgot about because I just had a hard time with it. But the McCarthy hearings I was with the Legislative Council at the time and Jack McKay had asked me to hold some hearings in Anchorage, which I did. Staying at the old Westward Hotel. They had a television set. And so we'd watch the McCarthy hearings on 150 television. George Fol ta was there. And, you know, George Fol ta' s family, or his second family, and I grew up knowing all the Foltas and particularly George himself. And we would sit and watch. And pretty soon he'd come over and grab my hand and say we're going for a walk, I can't stand this. And we'd go for a walk. The length of Fourth Avenue in Anchorage that was paved, which was generally long. And we'd pace up and down there until he had calmed down enough so that we could go back and watch more on television. We did that for two nights I think. And by the time I was done I think I had walked 50 miles, but yes, that was something. And of course, being in Washington as an undergraduate and as a graduate student I had a great interest in everything that was going on. But, you know, New Haven was not the place and the only time I got to Washington really was to visit the Bartletts and perhaps get caught up with some of the people with the statehood committee. MS. WILLARD: Before we go any further I'd really like to do these photographs so that I can take them and get them copied.

MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay.

MS. WILLARD: Do you think we could put a number on the back in pencil?

MS. SCHAIBLE: Sure.

MS. WILLARD: I believe I have one.

MS. SCHAIBLE: I don't have a pencil, I know. 151 MS. WILLARD: I think I do and I don't want to do it with anything else. And I'm just going to have you identify each one.

MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. MS. WILLARD: And then I'll have them copied and bring back to you the originals. So let's start with this one, and I'm going to write a number one. I'll just hand them to you. MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. This is a picture taken in 1967 when my husband and I were fishing at Charlie Lake. It has another name which I' 11 probably remember in a couple of days. These are lake trout. The big ones are the ones I caught, the small ones are the ones my husband caught. And we had a wonderful time there once I got the window fixed. It was letting in the mosquitos. But it's at the headwaters of the Gulkana River and there's grayling fishing as well as lake trout. And we'd go over in the boat and dip. Just dip for the things. ·Ms. WILLARD: Number two.

MS. SCHAIBLE: Number two was taken in the mid '60s with my husband. We're on the Sylvia D, that's the name of the boat, owned by Trevor Davis from Juneau. And we would go to Juneau every summer for the Golden North Salmon Derby as long as my father was alive. MS. WILLARD: Number three. MS. SCHAIBLE: Number three is a picture of my husband and myself. In the background St. Basil's Cathedral. The Tombs of Lenin and Stalin, because there were two of them in there 152 in 1960. And one of the towers of the Kremlin. This picture was taken in November of 1960 when we were making a month long tour of the Soviet Union. MS. WILLARD: Number four. MS. SCHAIBLE: Number four is a picture of my husband and myself taken in Durban, South Africa. We' re sitting in a rickshaw, which was -- well, we rode about half a block in it.

We had a Zulu warrior in complete garb who was pulling the rickshaw. MS. WILLARD: And that was taken on your honeymoon? MS. SCHAIBLE: That was taken on our honeymoon. It would have been in April of 1959. MS. WILLARD: Number five. MS. SCHAIBLE: Number five is the picture of me taken on arrival in Windhoek. That's W-i-n-d-h-o-e-k, the capital of what is now Namibia. At that time it was Southwest Africa, under a mandate to the Union of South Africa. MS. WILLARD: Number six. MS. SCHAIBLE: Number six is the picture taken on the front porch of my parents' home in Juneau, Alaska, of my

brother and my sister and myself. My sister is in the center. MS. WILLARD: And what year was this one (number 7) taken? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, 1965. It's a picture of myself on the right with Mae Wennerstrom at the bonfire in celebration of the passage by the Senate of the Statehood Bill. The final act 153 before being presented to the president. Mae Wennerstrom was the secretary in the office of Paul Robison, for whom I was clerking that summer. And that would have been at the end of June, I believe, in 1958. MS. WILLARD: Number eight. MS. SCHAIBLE: Number eight I think is a picture taken from college or graduate school, I'm not sure which. MS. WILLARD: And number nine. MS. SCHAIBLE: Number nine is a picture of me in downtown Fairbanks. I have just come from church and I'm dressed warmly for the weather. My senior year in college at the Universi­ ty of Alaska. MS. WILLARD: Number 10. MS. SCHAIBLE: Number 10 is a picture of me in front yard of my parents home in Juneau with the lilac trees. And I had just graduated from high school and was probably employed for the first time with the U.S. Forest Service. MS. WILLARD: Number 11. MS. SCHAIBLE: This is 11. Picture taken of me inside our home with me in my freshly pressed graduation gown. Graduation from high school. MS. WILLARD: Number 12. MS. SCHAIBLE: Number 12, this is a picture that says that I'm in the eighth grade. I would have sworn I was in the seventh grade at that time but somebody has marked on there eighth grade. And it's a picture of grade school. 154

MS. WILLARD: Number 13. MS. SCHAIBLE: Number 13 is a picture of Betty Keith and myself dressed in gowns preparing to do a very special dance for the Purple Bubble Ball of the Juneau Elks Club. I don't know how old I was at the time but I wasn't very old. MS. WILLARD: Number 14. MS. SCHAIBLE: Number 14 is a picture of Blanche Turner, the teacher, and my kindergarten class in Juneau. And I think my kindergarten class was the morning class. There were two classes. And most of these kids graduated from high school with me.

MS. WILLARD: Number 15. MS. SCHAIBLE: Number 15 is a picture of me at the age of I think probably two, maybe three, playing on the sort of sandy rocky beach. And I'm not sure which beach it is because my father took pictures of me at every beach we visited. And I always had my hair hanging in my face. And it could be Auke Bay but it's more likely to be Point Bishop. MS. WILLARD: Number 16. MS. SCHAIBLE: Number 16 is a picture of me in front of the sign for the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation. It was taken at a time when I was Chair of the Board of Trustees. MS. WILLARD: Number 17. MS. SCHAIBLE: Number 17 is a picture of me with Governor Cowper watching and taking the oath of office with Judge Rod Pegues. 155 MS. WILLARD: The oath of office of what? MS. SCHAIBLE: What? MS. WILLARD: The oath of office of what? MS. SCHAIBLE: The oath of office of Attorney General for the state of Alaska. MS. WILLARD: Number 18. MS. SCHAIBLE: Number 18 is a picture of me in an office conference. And I must be listening to somebody talking. But it was in our office in Fairbanks. MS. WILLARD: This is when you were in private practice? MS. SCHAIBLE: In private practice. MS. WILLARD: Okay. Number 19. MS. SCHAIBLE: Number 19 is a picture of me in an Eskimo jacket, also called parka, and I think the picture is taken at Point Hope. It looks like the Point Hope central office but I'm not sure. It looks like I have two handbags, so the picture was taken by Hazel Pebley, also known as Katuk. She was the assistant corporate secretary for the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation of Barrow. MS. WILLARD: Number 20. MS. SCHAIBLE: Number 20 is a picture of me on a sled with my husband behind and two of our puppies and three of our adult dogs. Great Pyrenees. This picture was also used as a Christmas card. And appears in a history book of the Great Pyrenees. 156 MS. WILLARD: Number 21. MS. SCHAIBLE: Number 21 is a picture of me with

Sven Ebbesen, who was the director of the WAMI program in Alaska.

WAMI being Washington, Alaska, Montana and Idaho. And it is the first year of medical students in Alaska. And then they go to the University of Washington. It's taken at a dinner that I sponsor every year for the WAMI students. MS. WILLARD: And number 22. MS. SCHAIBLE: Number 22, isn't there a better one than that? MS. WILLARD: Which one would you rather have? I was just going to take one. You pick. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yeah. This smile. MS. WILLARD: Okay. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, geez. They're all -- just forget them. MS. WILLARD: Just forget those? MS. SCHAIBLE: Yeah. Forget those. Yeah. They're not real good. MS. WILLARD: Okay. Why don't you take those and then I have these copies. MS. SCHAIBLE: I don't have any place to put them. MS. WILLARD: Okay. I'll put them back in here. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yeah, yeah. That envelope I will recognize. 157 MS. WILLARD: Great. Okay. So you went to Africa for your honeymoon ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: yes. MS. WILLARD: ..... with Dr. Schaible. And you were gone how long?

MS. SCHAIBLE: We left in March and came home in

May. We had originally -- SAS had started flying over the Pole from Copenhagen to Anchorage and Anchorage to Copenhagen. And we were supposed to take that. The person for SAS in Alaska was a long-time friend of mine, married to a Fairbanksan. And so I had made all the arrangements with him even before anyone else knew that we were going to do this. And just about two weeks before we were scheduled to leave he called and said SAS is going on strike and I wanted to give you a heads up immediately so that you could start making other arrangements. And he said I have no idea how long the strike is going to last. So I got on the phone quickly and we flew with Pan American to Seattle, American Airlines to New York. Picked up Pan American in New York and flew across the Atlantic to Lisbon. And we had previously arranged to fly from Lisbon to Johannesburg because that was the way that SAS wanted to get us into Africa --to take us from Copenhagen to Lisbon and then from Lisbon on with Pan American. And then we would come back with SAS. Well, as it turned out we did all that. Got into South Africa and spent a couple of days visiting relatives in Pretoria, visiting friends in Johannesburg, and then flew to Windhoek where 158 we spent time driving around visiting friends of my father-in-law, who was an American missionary. And then rented a car the first time it had ever been rented from Windhoek. We had a driver with the unfortunate name of Rehoboth Ba~tard. And he was just part of a mixed race group that had moved out of Africa to what was then German territory. But then we took a coastal steamer from Walvis Bay where my husband had been born, to South Africa to Cape Town and then wandered around visiting relatives in the Cape Town area, took a bus trip on the Garden Coast, visiting relatives enroute. And ended up in Durban where we hired a car and driver and went to game reserves, including Krueger Park. Then we went back to Johannes­ burg and then tried to figure out how to get home. And since SAS was still not flying, my husband said he wanted to go to Egypt. Well, in 1959 it wasn't a very good idea to be in what was former English territory in Africa trying to get permission to go to Egypt. So we flew to southern Rhodesia, transferred to Kenya and ultimately transferred to Ethiopia where yes, we could get a visa to go to Egypt, which we did. And spent some time in Egypt and then some time in Greece, and then finally Copenhagen. And by that time SAS was -- well, in Greece we found out that SAS was going to be operating from Rome and so we flew with Onassis airlines -- Olympic to Rome and then picked up SAS to Copenhagen and then over the North Pole, stopping of course in Denmark to visit friends. 159 MS. WILLARD: So what did you do once you arrived back in Alaska? MS. SCHAIBLE: I got back and the two assistant AGs that I had worked with were now practicing law with Bob McNealy.

It was McNealy, Merdes & Camarot. And I got a phone call saying they wanted me to clerk. And I said I think I better start studying for the Bar. I mean this is May and the Bar would be in October. And they said oh, no, you don't need to start studying until later. And so I went and clerked with them for a couple of months and then I started studying for the Bar. And then I took the Bar starting on my father's birthday, 1959. MS. WILLARD: What date was that? MS. SCHAIBLE: October 5th. And took the Bar exam and spent the rest of the year worrying. I lost 18 pounds. And I didn't have 18 pounds to lose at that point. And really, really worried about it .. And in February I was scheduled to go with Neva Egan, who was the wife of the governor, to Cincinnati to be trained to raise funds for the American Cancer Society. So Neva and I went off and I said, you know, they're supposed to get the results of the Bar to me. And my husband said well, I'll let you know if I hear anything. And just the day before I was to leave Bill Boggess called. He was on the Board of Governors and he called and he said I don't know what you've been so worried about. MS. WILLARD: So it took from October to February to get the results of the exam? 160 MS. SCHAIBLE: Um-hum.

MS. WILLARD: How many people took the Bar that year? MS. SCHAIBLE: I don't remember. I don't remember. MS. WILLARD: I've always called that exam,because I had to take it, the old home grown Alaska Bar exam. Was that ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. MS. WILLARD: Made up by our fellow -- what were to be our fellow attorneys? MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. MS. WILLARD: What was your experience with it? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, it's the worst exam I've ever had in my life. And I had no way of judging how I had done. I was never very good at that to begin with. I usually under estimated what I was doing. And with the Bar exam I was convinced that I had not passed. And I kept saying that and my husband was--just what do you mean you didn't pass the Bar? What do you mean you didn't pass the Bar? Well, I'm not sure that I did pass the Bar so I'm saying I didn't. Oh, he said, I can't believe you, couldn't pass the Bar exam. But in any event I did pass it. And then they were going to have the admission and my husband said you can't be here, you have to be in Anchorage, you're writing the resolutions for the Alaska Medical Association. Oh, when did I get volunteered for that? So we went to Anchorage. And there was no way. My class was admitted before the Territorial 161 judges left office, which I thought was crazy. I came back after the Alaska Medical Association meeting was over and said now what do I do? How do I get admitted to practice? And they said well, it's going to be easy, Harry Arend is going to do it. And Mike Stepovich is going to present you. Okay. Sounds fine. And so the day after Washington's birthday -- everyone was admitted on the 19th. I was admitted on the 23rd. And I was the first person to be admitted after the Superior Court had taken over from the Territorial District Court. MS. WILLARD: And perhaps you can explain who that person was who swore you in?

MS. SCHAIBLE: What?

MS. WILLARD: Who the person was who swore you in? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, Harry Arend. At that time he was a judge in the Superior Court, which was kind of unusual because most of the people had been admitted by Territorial judges. But a special dispensation was given for Harry to do this and so I was admitted by him .. He later was appointed justice of the Supreme Court and unfortunately he was voted out of office and I left the Tanana Valley Bar Association over that because they were going to use my dues money to fight to get him off the bench. And I just said well, you do things like that with my dues money, I'm out of here. And they said well, we really didn't intend to, we were going to assess a special assessment. I said well, go with your special assessment but don't count on me. I said my money is on Harry, I like him. He was a good friend. 162

MS. WILLARD: Yes. MS. SCHAIBLE: He and his wife, Dessa. MS. WILLARD: I never understood what the problem was. MS. SCHAIBLE: They couldn't get Justice Nesbett, whom they really wanted. MS. WILLARD: And tell us about Mike Stepovich. MS. SCHAIBLE: Mike Stepovich claims to have been the last Territorial Governor of Alaska, which is not true. But he was the Governor of Alaska in the very last days of territorial status, but he was not the last governor. He resigned in order to run for public off ice as Statehood was approaching. And I've always called him Waino all my life. Waino Hendrickson was the final territorial governor. But Mike Stepovich comes from a long time Fairbanks family. Is a delightful person. A little cantan­ kerous as he gets older but he's just a really neat person. And he has a nice family. It's a very large family. Thirteen -- 12 or 13 children. But they're wonderful people, he and his wife. MS. WILLARD: I understand that some time in this era perhaps pre graduation from Yale, you started to become very interested in theater? MS. SCHAIBLE: In theater? MS. WILLARD: I heard something about the Anchorage Community Theater. MS. SCHAIBLE: No, not I. No. I supported productions here at the university because our next door neighbor was a 163 professor of drama. And his wife was the sister of my husband's first wife, and so there was all these family connections. But no, I've -- theater was very interesting when I was in law school because I went to the Schubert almost every Wednesday night because

New Haven was a great try out town. My Fair Lady played there before it opened in New York. A lot of plays did. And I did see a lot of plays that went on Broadway later. But I just enjoyed going to the theater. I have no other interest in it. MS. WILLARD: Okay. By the way, were there any female professors at Yale when you attended? MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes.

MS. WILLARD: Who?

MS. SCHAIBLE: Ellen Peters. She taught for a number of years after I was out of law school. And then went on the Supreme Court of Connecticut and was a chief justice. MS. WILLARD: Do you remember any interaction with her while you were at school? MS. SCHAIBLE: No. Because she came my last year. But I had a lot of interaction with professors, largely because, you know, I was an oddity. I was a woman from Alaska and -- you know, Jerome Frank, for example, talked to me all the time. And a Clark -- oh, what was his name? He was on the Second Circuit Court. Well, both he and Jerome Frank were on the Second Circuit. But they came back and did seminars at Yale all the time. And they just both wanted to talk to me because I was from Alaska. Moore, on civil practice. 164 MS. WILLARD: Oh, Moore's Federal Practice? MS. SCHAIBLE: Moore's Federal Practice. Yeah. He was one of my professors.

MS. WILLARD: Oh, my.

MS . SCHAIBLE: And, you know, al 1 of sudden he discovered I was from Alaska and it wasn't .....

(END OF PROCEEDINGS) VOLUME IV

INTERVIEW OF GRACE BERG SCHAIBLE December 5, 2006 165

P R O C E E D I N G S

MS. WILLARD: It is December 6, 2006 and with me is

Grace Berg Schaible. We are continuing her interview for the ABA

Commission on Women's Project. My name is Donna Willard-Jones. And Grace, it's great to see you again. MS. SCHAIBLE: Glad you're here. MS. WILLARD: I think last time, when the tape abruptly terminated because it had run out, you were just speaking about Professor Harper at Cornell. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, no, Yale. MS. WILLARD: Or Yale. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yale, yes. MS. WILLARD: Sorry.

MS. SCHAIBLE: No, Fowler Harper was my honors professor and my major assignment was to work on a case that I think it was the Planned Parenthood of Connecticut had brought in Federal Court about the problems of the -- Connecticut had a law which prohibited providing information or sale of contraceptive devices. And this was the first opportunity that the Planned Parenthood had because Fowler Harper agreed that he would supply students to do the research and I was one of them and so I worked on that project for -- well, I guess I did it for a whole year. It was great. Very interesting. And I got to meet a lot of practic­ ing attorneys in Connecticut, so it was very worthwhile for me. MS. WILLARD: How did the case turn out? 166 MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, it went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court said Connecticut you can't do that. There's a question of free speech. I wasn't working as much on the free speech as I was another aspect of it, but it did go to the Supreme Court and Connecticut lost. MS. WILLARD: Do you remember the name of the case? MS. SCHAIBLE: No, I don't. MS. WILLARD: Did you have any other activities of that sort? Of course that would be a major one. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. No -- well, every law student was required to do one semester at -- it was like a legal aid program and every student had to do one semester there and I did my semester. I got to know an entirely different side of New Haven than I had seen because previously my only work in the community had been in political campaigns so ..... MS. WILLARD: And what type of cases were you involved in? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, most of them were landlord/tenant problems. Landlords wanted to get rid of tenants and so would cut off heat, water, the whole nine yards and, you know, it was basically suing landlords most of the time, that was the principal thing that ..... MS. WILLARD: When you were in law school did you concentrate on any one subject or have any idea of what area you might ultimately practice in? 167 MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, no, I didn't really. I spent quite a bit of time on tax and corporate law and particularly corporate taxation. Boris Bittner was the principal professor and he was a Cornell graduate and he actually I think was at Cornell with -- oh, one of our Supreme Court Justices who then went to the Ninth Circuit, a Juneau man, Boochever, Bob Boochever. MS. WILLARD: Oh, Bob. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes, I think he was a classmate of Bob's at Cornell and because of that connection I knew one of his classmates. It was a lot easier for me to get in and talk to him when I didn't understand what he was doing, but as a result I spent a lot of time with Bory Bittner and he was just really a great professor. MS. WILLARD: Maybe, just because we did it so quickly, you can explain who Bob Boochever is? MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. Bob Boochever was an attorney in private practice in Juneau, Faulkner, Banfield, Boochever and Doogan. And from there he went, I think, directly to the Supreme Court of Alaska and then later to the Ninth Circuit Court and was there many years and was active until -- well, I guess until his death or is he still alive? I don't know. MS. WILLARD: I think he's still alive. MS. SCHAIBLE: He's still alive. I just -- I've, sort of, lost track of them. MS. WILLARD: Yes. And he was our first Ninth Circuit Judge. 168 MS. SCHAIBLE: He was our first Ninth Circuit Judge. And -- but, he was just a man who had a great private practice and a great public practice. MS. WILLARD: You mentioned about the legal aid semester that you spent. Was Yale ahead of its time in requiring that kind of practical experience, do you know? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, Yale is not the more typical law school. They have great emphasis on public policy and they have great emphasis on public service and I think that's where they were coming from rather than giving you a practical experience. I think they were coming at it from the viewpoint that all lawyers need to have a sense of their requirement for public service and that's where they were coming from. I don't think it was a matter of practical. They could care less. They didn't teach you how to file a document. MS. WILLARD: That's why I asked the question. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. No, that was not their specialty, but it was a requirement that you do spend a semester and the only people who didn't have to do it were the people who were taking a full load their first year and then went on Journal their second year and those people didn't have to do it because Journal was enough of a public policy. MS. WILLARD: From what you've told me about your experience at Yale, the fact that you were a woman really didn't play any role at least in a negative sense? 169 MS. SCHAIBLE: No, there was no negative sense of it except from fellow students who thought that the seat I was occupying ought to be occupied by one of their buddies, but no. No, the faculty with one exception, the faculty welcomed women students. They just -- they thought it was nice to have that kind of diversity and Yale was a leader and had been a leader for a long time in having women in law school.

MS. WILLARD: We were, sort of, skipping around at the end last time. I'm not quite sure how we got back to Yale and to Professor Harper, but I think we had gotten you through the Bar exam.

MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes. MS. WILLARD: And the word finally came in February that you'd been admitted. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. MS. WILLARD: Your swearing in ceremony. MS. SCHAIBLE: Incidently, Neisje Steinkruger found the tape on which I was sworn in~ ... . MS. WILLARD: Oh .... . MS. SCHAIBLE: . . . . . and I haven't heard it yet because my schedule is just so wild I probably won't have a chance to hear it until next year, but it would be interesting for me to hear it. Mike Stepovich was the one who presented me to Harry Arend for admission so ..... MS. WILLARD: Well, I'd be interested to hear that as well. So you are now a newly admitted attorney, ..... 170 MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes.

MS. WILLARD: . .... 1960. MS. SCHAIBLE: Um-hum. (Affirmative) . MS. WILLARD: What next came? MS. SCHAIBLE: February 23rd. Of course I had been clerking for the law firm of McNealy, Merdes, Camarot and Fitzger- ald and went back and was immediately assigned to Fitz who was in the process of codifying the ordinances of Fairbanks, so ..... MS. WILLARD: And when you mentioned Fitz of whom are you speaking? MS. SCHAIBLE: James Fitzgerald who was a Legisla- tor. He was I think he did serve as Attorney General for a while, but this was before that happened and then he became a Superior Court Judge and then a U. S. District Court Judge. MS. WILLARD: You missed a step in the middle, he was also on the Alaska Supreme Court. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, he was, okay. Well, I lost track of him. I don't see him often any more, but I usually run into him in Anchorage at the museum at lunch time, but -- 'cause he holds forth and still holds forth in the U. S. District Court. MS. WILLARD: And that's where they love to go for lunch. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. But, yes, it was great fun working with him and it got me interested in municipal law and that's something I did quite a bit of in the early years of my practice. 171 MS. WILLARD: And where was that law firm located? MS. SCHAIBLE: It was in the Bloom Building which is where the Mt. McKinley Bank is now and right downtown, middle of town. MS. WILLARD: Fairbanks. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yeah, uh-hum.

MS. WILLARD: Okay. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yeah. And Fitz lived here for the period of time he was involved in that and when he finished, it was really rushed because then he was being appointed to the Superior Court, I think, at that point. Did he serve as an AG, I can't remember? MS. WILLARD: I'm not sure. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. MS. WILLARD: I thought he went directly to the Superior Court, but I could be wrong. I've got his materials at home. I'll double check it for you. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. MS. WILLARD: For another reason. MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, I'm just not sure of that because the first Attorney General in statehood was John Rader and -- but I don't think he served a full four years and that's why I thought maybe Fitz had gone in, but I'm not sure, but in any event it was great fun and he interested me in municipal law which I did follow for quite a while. 172 Bob McNealy in the meantime was getting me into probate and I enjoyed that. That was great, I knew a lot of the old timers in Fairbanks so it was good. And then one of the things that I started working on after we finished with the code, the Fairbanks Municipal Code, was to work with Henry Camarot who was in the process of working with an urban renewal project for downtown Fairbanks and Henry Camarot assigned me the project of quieting title to what had been the line.

The II line, 11 in quotes, means the place where the cribs of the prostitutes were located on Fourth Avenue in Fairbanks and that meant tryirig to trace these ladies of the evening. And Fairbanks, of course, in the early days, the ladies of the evening were just not there. No one looked down on them, no one had any problem with them. There wasn't any real social interaction, but everybody in Fairbanks knew who they were. And quite frankly I found out that a woman I had known in Juneau had come off the line. And so it was an interesting project for me and I worked very closely with long time Fairbanks residents who knew the girls on the line and could tell me something about where I might find information on what had happened to them and it was a very interesting project which ..... MS. WILLARD: Have you read Lael Morgan's book? MS. SCHAIBLE: No, I haven't. MS. WILLARD: Oh, you really need to get it. 173 MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes, I know, There are so many books to read. MS. WILLARD: I know, I know, but she really did a great job. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. MS. WILLARD: And why did you need to trace the ladies in particular? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, because there were huge gaps in what had happened, transactions in the property. You know, the lots were very small and so we had to be able to assure that the person who was going to buy that land had clear title and that was the responsibility and there were huge gaps in the title and some of them you could basically ignore if you had information about the most recent occupants. And it was, sort of, like one of the jobs ·I did for one of the mining companies. MS. WILLARD: How long did it take you on that particular project? MS. SCHAIBLE: I would guess probably three months. MS. WILLARD: Did you ever meet any of the ladies yourself? MS. SCHAIBLE: No. No, but I got to know them by their common names. MS. WILLARD: Do you remember some of the names? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, one of them was the Oregon Mare. Everybody talked about them. And most of the history of the line in Fairbanks, the women who were there during the influenza 174 epidemic following the first World War were the same women who went to Nenana and took over the hospital in Nenana because there was nobody else capable of doing it. The nurses and the doctors had all died off and these women went to Nenana and took care of all of the flu patients in Nenana. MS. WILLARD: Amazing. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. It was a wonderful learning experience for me. I mean, growing up in Juneau, I knew who all the ladies of the evening were. In fact, I'd see them and they knew who I was and -- well, largely because I demonstrated hats for them through the Behrend' s Store, but you just grow up with a different look about the women involved and as you grow older you felt sorry for them, but at the time they seemed to be quite capable of taking care of themselves. MS. WILLARD: And others as well. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes, yes. MS. WILLARD: Do you remember any other memorable projects or assignments from that time? MS. SCHAIBLE: No. I mean, those were the things that because then I started really doing municipal law. The law firm Fitzgerald left and then pretty soon Camarot left and there was just McNealy and Merdes and then it became much more concen­ trated for me to do municipal law which I did.

We represented the City of Barrow. We represented the

City of Kotzebue. We represented the City of North Pole and ..... 175

MS. WILLARD: Before we go on, perhaps, you can explain geographically where those three cities are located? MS. SCHAIBLE: Barrow is the farthest north city in the United States and it's located on the edge of the Chukchi Sea. I don't know 73, 75 degrees north. It's quite far up there. It's largely an Inupiat Eskimo village. It was entirely that at the time. Then Kotzebue is a city to the west and southwest of Barrow and it's very close to the Bering Straits and it's again, another Inupiat Eskimo community. North Pole is southeast of Fairbanks, about 14 miles and it's, sort of, the Santa Claus city of Alaska. MS. WILLARD: That's where the kids' mail goes ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. MS. WILLARD: ..... to get answered by Santa Claus. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes.

MS. WILLARD: Okay. MS. SCHAIBLE: So it's -- but in 1966 there was a major shift in the firm. Bob McNealy had been serving as a senator and Ed Merdes was away as the world president of the Junior Chamber International, JCs. And I was left in Fairbanks to run the law firm which at that point included -- no, Ed -- Ed Niewohner had gone before then, but Howard Staley and Steve DeLisio and we were trying to hold things together. Bob McNealy, wonderful person, went back on the sauce, went back to drinking and it made it very difficult because I tried 176 to make certain that we had money for the payroll and he -- but in any event, I was ready to just quit because the money was disap­ pearing and I didn't know where it was going and trying to do it and Ed decided he better come back. I had talked to his wife and said you'd better get him back here as quickly as you can because it's just deteriorating and so Ed did come home and saw the condition that I was trying to live through and he -- the Legislature had adjourned and so Bob McNealy was back and Ed just said, I don't know where you've used all the money, but Grace can't make payroll all the time and so he said we need to split which we did. And we had moved into these quarters that were quite

elegant. We were doing a lot of work at that point for Lloyd's of London directly, directly with Lloyd's and Bob McNealy liked their style of things and so our offices were quite elegant, but not very useful. And so he was going to keep the offices and that was fine.

We moved back to where we had been a couple of years before and the firm became Merdes, Schaible, Staley and DeLisio. MS. WILLARD: And when was that? MS. SCHAIBLE: 1966. MS. WILLARD: I take it at that -- you'd been a partner for some time at that juncture or ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, I had not -- I had been -- I'd never been partner. I was the senior associate manager, managing associate. You tell me what that means, but I had the responsibil- 177 ity of managing while Bob was in Juneau and Ed was traveling worldwide. MS. WILLARD: So I take it that was 1966 when this new entity came into being, at that point you were a partner? MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes, um-hum, yeah. And I was actually I was the managing partner from that time until, I don't know, 10 years maybe, about '76 I decided that somebody else should be doing it. MS. WILLARD: In that 10 year -- well, maybe we can work with that 10 year period, tell me a little bit about your clients and cases and projects? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, we still -- we still had the municipal representation and I think Barrow may have dropped off by then, but we still had Kotzebue and North Pole. And with the changing climate as a result of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, Kotzebue finally dropped out, but not before I'd spent quite a bit of time going over to Kotzebue and meeting people. The Native Claims Settlement Act made a difference in our practice and particularly mine, because Ed had established a relationship with Arctic Slope Regional Corporation which is the northern region of the Inupiat people. MS. WILLARD: Maybe we should back up just a bit and explain what the Claims Settlement Act was and how it was struc­ tured just so it makes ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act came about because of the discovery of petroleum on 178 the North Slope of Alaska which is Prudhoe Bay and they wanted to build a pipeline. Unsettled at that time were the Native land claims. And Congress finally got the idea that they'd better do something if they were going to make the United States less dependent on foreign oil. So they worked with the Native groups which had been organized for many years, largely as a result of the work of Howard Rock, who was a Native leader, who created a newspaper called the Tundra Times which kept everybody involved. The Alaska Native Federation of Natives was formed and -­ but Congress finally settled down to work on the land claims and how to resolve them. The result was the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act which provided for 44 million acres of land to go to the various regions of the state which would the Native organizations were required to form regional, profit corporations. The villages could be profit or non-profit, that didn 1 t make any difference, but the regional corporations had to be profit making. There was -- I was trying to think of how -- what the monetary settlement was. I've ..... MS. WILLARD: 953 million, ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Was that it? MS. WILLARD: ..... give or take. MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay, yes. And half of it was paid by the State of Alaska out of the proceeds of Prudhoe Bay. The 179 Feds paid half and we paid half, the State of Alaska paid half. And so the regional corporations were formed. MS. WILLARD: How many were there? MS. SCHAIBLE: There were 13 regions, 12 in Alaska and one, the 13 region Outside. And the land was based basically on traditional land usage. And the biggest landowner was Doyon Corporation which was Interior Alaska because they had tremendous land usage over thousands of years, but I got -- Ed Merdes got hooked up with Arctic Slope Regional Corporation and then, you know, I was brought in to do the detail work. And the first thing I noticed was the law firm, not Alaskan, which had incorporated them didn't know that we hadn't adopted the second revision to the Model Corporations Code. We had only the first and I had to say you' re not in compliance with Alaska law. Oh. And next thing is you will come to the Board of Director's meeting which is being held in Fairbanks and we're going to take a look at you which they did. The next thing I knew I was offered the position to be the principal person responsible to the Board of Directors and so I became their general counsel which meant that for the next nine years I averaged about a week a month in Barrow and then they would loan me to the villages when they had particular problems and I would conduct seminars for the Board and provide working papers, as they called for them, for things when they were looking at, acquisitions and changes. 180 And the odd thing about the Claims Settlement Act was that the Board of Directors of both the Regional Corporation and the Village Corporations sat as a probate court. They ..... MS. WILLARD: As? MS. SCHAIBLE: As a probate court, yes. They determined heirship. That's -- you know, because the stock in the corporation could not be transferred and the only transfer occurred on death of a shareholder and they're the ones who determined who the heirs were. And so we had quite a time because the Claims Settlement Act, sort of, provided that traditional usage had to be recognized and traditional usage freq- -- you know, changed Alaska law quite a bit in the fact that you could inherit from your natural parents and from -- a lot of virtual adoptions and your adoptive parents you could inherit from both and that really -- and I advised my Board I thought that was the traditional use and that they should be following it. And they said yeah, sure, that was the traditional thing and no problem. Fortunately the Supreme Court agreed with it because a suit was brought in another region, I think, to overturn this and the Supreme Court said no, the traditional law had to be but it was fun. I really enjoyed it. Got to know people all over the Arctic. I'd normally fly from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay to Barrow and then fly from Barrow back to Fairbanks, but occasionally they wanted me to go a different route and I'd fly from Fairbanks to Anchorage to Kotzebue to Point Hope, wherever, but I visited most, 181 not all the villages of the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, but most of them. And I went to shareholder meetings, decision management and how they voted their proxies and it was fun. MS. WILLARD: Was that where your interest in bears arose? MS. SCHAIBLE: No, no, that's long, long before that. MS. WILLARD: Okay. Let's save the bears for later then. MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, I had an opportunity because everybody knew I was crazy about bears -- if a bear came into the village then I was notified and taken out to see the bear, but that was appreciated. MS. WILLARD: So either then -- although it sounds like a full time job particularly with the villages -- in fact, how many villages were there? MS. SCHAIBLE: Eight. MS. WILLARD: In the Arctic Slope Region? MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. MS. WILLARD: Okay. MS. SCHAIBLE: And I was loaned. The villages didn't pay me. Arctic Slope paid me. MS. WILLARD: Right. MS. SCHAIBLE: And they didn't want any conflict and, you know, I had to be very careful that anything I said was not in conflict with the region because they were my employer, but 182 most of it had to do with assisting the villages in meeting the requirements of determining heirship. And -- well, actually I trained two different individuals, corporate secretaries, and they're the ones who had most of the responsibility for shareholder relations. And we -- there was a very bad fire in Barrow and records were destroyed. The corporate records there was no problem because I had all the stuff in my office and I wasn't worried about that, but there was certain shareholder bits of information that burned up and one of them was the determination of eligibility. And so what -- and most of it was related to the shareholders who lived in Canada so as a result we made a trip to Inuvik and dealt with the woman who was the head of their office in -- not the Arctic Slope office, but the Native office in Inuvik and she made copies of all of the determinations of her .....

MS . WILLARD: And Inuvik is in the Northwest Territories? MS. SCHAIBLE: It's -- yes, it's in the Northwest Territories of Canada. And we also -- when we made this trip there was the corporate secretary, the assistant corporate secretary and myself and we flew to Whitehorse and then from Whitehorse to Inuvik. And while we were there we went to Aklavik which is in the Yukon, and in Aklavik I took affidavits of heirship because we had some deceased shareholders and they had no idea of how to fill out the forms. And they didn't go into Inuvik and so I did those 183 things in Aklavik and then brought back all of the things that we needed from the records there and established a good relationship with the people in the shareholders the Arctic Slope shareholders who were ~iving in the Northwest Territories and in the Yukon which was pretty important because the 13th region was trying desperately to get all of these people to enroll in the 13th ;r:-egion. MS. WILLARD: And why was that? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, it meant a greater amount of money corning out of the distributions. These were not dividends. They were distributions of the funds coming from the Claims Settlement Act from the Feds and from the State and so they'd get more money. MS. WILLARD: You might expand a bit on the 13th region because we're familiar with it, but Outside it probably isn't known. MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, the 13th region is for people who no longer lived in Alaska basically, but it wasn't a require­ ment that they enroll in the 13th region, but the 13th region wanted them to enroll in that. They had no land so they were just going to have to make it on their own. They had no no resources in the State of Alaska, but the savvy shareholders -- or the savvy would be shareholders, the people who were eligible to enroll were to take the ancestral ..... MS. WILLARD: To? 184 MS. SCHAIBLE: To take the ancestral site and so they enrolled a lot of them because, you know, their ancestral site had disappeared, but they were close to Cook Inlet and Cook Inlet had a large number of non-Alaskan residents. Arctic Slope had a few, not a lot, but they had this large group coming from Canada some of whom did enroll in the 13th Region. The people in Inuvik said, you're making a big mistake. You don't know any of those people. They have no ties, no particular ties to your heritage and ..... MS. WILLARD: Because the 13th could be from any ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: They could be from any place and as long as they proved their eligibility for enrollment which was a blood quantum requirement ..... MS. WILLARD: Yes.

MS . SCHAIBLE : or living the life with a lesser blood quantum so it's one-quarter blood quantum. MS. WILLARD: Yes. You might explain here that there are -- the different ethnic groups, aboriginal ethnic groups that populate Alaska because that will help ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. MS. WILLARD: ..... illuminate this story. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. Well, there are Indians of different shades and kinds, there are Eskimos of different shades and kinds and then you have the groups that don't really quite fit into this, the Aleuts, the Alutiq and those are the two main ones, 185 but they don't -- the Aleuts go by Aleut. The Alutiq people are Lungonan, or something like that. I can't remember what their name is. MS. WILLARD: Dena'ina, isn't it? MS. SCHAIBLE: What? Dena'ina, no, they're Athabascans, that's Athabascans. MS. WILLARD: No, that's Athabascans. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. But let's go back to the Indian group. The Indian group is the Tsimshian which are the very southern of Southeastern Alaska. They originated in Canada, were brought to Alaska and most of them live on a reservation, the only reservation in Alaska at Metlakatla, but a lot of them have moved away from there and live in Ketchikan, but they are Tsimshian. Then you have the Haida people. The traditional home of the Haida is the Queen Charlotte Islands in Canada, or Haida Gwai as they call it, but they established themselves in the southern part of Prince of Wales Island which is in Alaska and at the communities of Hydaburg and Craig, Klawock maybe, too. And then you have the largest group of what we call the Northwest Coast Indians and that is the Tlingits and they go from any place in Southeastern Alaska, Yakutat up to the Ewaks. They go into Canada. Teslin I think is probably the largest area of it, but they're what the Russians call the Kolash, the warrior people. Highly developed culturally. Maybe the Haidas were better carvers and the Haidas had different products that you don't find in Alaska such as argillite, which is a slate like stone, but they're just -- 186 the culture was highly evolved and it's still practiced. Amazing things, so ..... Then as you move north you start coming into the Athabascan people which, of course, are related to the midwest Indians, the Sioux, the Navajo, they're all Athabascans, but there are the northern Athabascans, the Gwichin people who are caribou hunters. Then you have the Dena'ina people who -- and the Kenaitze who live in the -- the larger group in the northern part is along the Yukon and Tanana Rivers. The others are in the coastal areas of Cook Inlet. And then you have the two major Eskimo groups. The Inupiat speaking Eskimos which are in the Arctic for the most part and they go from the Canadian border to the Bering Straits and from the Brooks Range north, the Brooks Range being extended into the Endicott Range and so forth, but it's basically a higher Arctic group. Then there is the Yup'ik Eskimo also known as the Cup'ik and they are mostly along the lower Yukon and the Kuskokwim Delta areas. And part of them intermingle at certain points with the Kenaitze people, the Athabascans and also the Aleut and Alutiq people, so -- and those people -- the Alutiq people are mostly on Kodiak, in the Shelikof Straits area, and Afognak Island. The Aleut people are mostly concentrated in the islands of the Aleutian Chain and also the Pribolofs. I'm trying to think if any of them are on the mainland of the Alaska Peninsula, but I don't know. I just don't. I tend to 187 think of those as Alutiq. Those are the various regions and the Native organizations created the regional corporation. MS. WILLARD: I think that helps give some flesh to the idea of the regional corporations and the 13th region which were the landless Outside. MS. SCHAIBLE: Although there's been an attempt to give them some land and I don't know whether that's ever going to go any place because the Native corporations have never all received all their land entitlements. The State of Alaska has never received all of its' land entitlements and I can't see adding another layer onto it, but its the Federal Government's problem, not the State of Alaska's. MS. WILLARD: So it sounds to me as if the work with the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation must have occupied a large portion of those nine or 10 years. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. I don't think -- well, I did -­ yes. No, that's -- I did have a lot of probate work. By this time our office had expanded so that we had an office in Anchorage. Steve DeLisio moved to Anchorage and set it up and then started bringing in associates in Anchorage and in the early days of that office we all moved down to Anchorage for a month or two while Steve was trying to find associates that he wanted to have working there, but that preceded the involvement with Arctic Slope. We started in 1973 and went to ..... MS. WILLARD: So when was the Anchorage office established? 188

MS. SCHAIBLE: 1972. MS. WILLARD: Can you think of any other clients -­ I mean, other than the probate matters, any significant clients during that period? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, the law firm represented a lot of insurance defense and that was the main bread and butter of the law firm because that's what most of the attorneys were doing. I was spending nearly all my time on Arctic Slope and because not only did I go north to Barrow and the villages, but I went south because they had an Anchorage office. Arctic Slope had a major presence in Anchorage and I'd go there. Then they started holding meetings in various places. For training we went to the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon, spent a week there meeting with the Warm Springs Reserva­ tion people because they were very innovative, more so than most of the reservation people. And so I was always going for things like that.

We had seminars in Anchorage. We had seminars in Girdwood, we did a lot of training of village leaders as well as the subsidiary corporate leaders. Arctic Slope seemed to be farming subsidiary corporations. Every time I turned around I was creating a new corporation, but that occupied a lot of my time. And then as Arctic Slope expanded they were borrowing money to make acquisitions and to do various things to improve the 1 i ves of their shareholders and one of them was, you know, borrowing money and going to Seattle for the closing of loans and, 189 of course, I had the responsibility of reporting all indebtedness of the corp- -- the indebtedness of the corporation and proving that the corporation was in good standing and that all of its subsidiaries were in good standing and so I spent a lot of time in Seattle with the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation's accountants which was the national accounting firm of Price Waterhouse. MS. WILLARD: And how long did you involvement at that level with Arctic Slope continue? MS. SCHAIBLE: It continued until 1983 basically and there was a rnaj or change in 1983. The man who had been the executive vice president was removed from office and he was the person who had the responsibility for working closely with the general counsel and all the other attorneys. The general -- my position as general counsel excluded land problems, land decisions, that was just totally out. I didn't have anything to do with that. Land and oil and gas were handled by other attorneys and I was very grateful, but there was this major change. I had gone on an extended trip as this was after my husband had died and I was bound and determined to finish the list of places that we had planned to go together, and one of them was Antarctica, so ..... MS. WILLARD: When did you husband pass away? MS. SCHAIBLE: 1980. And in 1983 I went to Antarctica. And then corning out of Antarctica I spent another well, that trip was six weeks and then I spent another month in 190 Australia and New Zealand and Hong Kong before coming back. And when I came back to Alaska I was no longer general counsel. MS. WILLARD: Oh, so it occurred while you were out of the state? MS. SCHAIBLE: Um-hum, yes.

MS. WILLARD: Oh, my. MS. SCHAIBLE: And, as you know, things change and I wasn't upset by it. The firm was not very happy about it, but -­ and then oh, I guess, it was a year or two later -- a year later, I guess, I ran into the president of Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, Jake Adams, and he said why aren't you around any more and I said well, they fired me. And he said oh, no, they didn't. And he said that doesn't make sense, you've been with us from the very beginning. We didn't fire you. And I said well, Jake, I just -- they told me that I was no longer general counsel. And he said well, we have an in-house counsel, you helped get him for us. That was Conrad Bagne and

(Tape change) ..... I said yes, I did that and he said well, let me figure out what's going on. So he went back and the next thing I knew -- but the next thing I knew Conrad was on the phone with me saying, we have these opportunities to sell our net operating losses, which was a piece of Congressional Legislation that made the Native Corporations quite wealthy, and, I can't do them all, so will you come in and work with me on getting these NOLs sold. 191 And he said, we've already worked out who we -- what corporations we're willing to work with. And -- but the nitty-gri­ tty needs your attention and so I did. And I did that for several years until the NOLs were all used up or the law expired. I can't remember which, but then I was used for special projects and we did that for a number of years. Then finally I said, I enjoyed doing this, but I'm getting ready to retire and in 1986 I did. I gave my two years' notice and so I was going to retire and then that's when I was asked by Steve Cowper to be the Attorney General and I said okay. MS. WILLARD: Well, before we get there, we're almost there, at some point did you represent the University of Alaska? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes, Well, the law firm did. I didn't do a lot of it. I didn't want to do it because my husband was on the Board of Regents but Henry Camarot did some of it. Ed Merdes did some of it. Henry Camarot came back to the law firm, and I can't remember what year that was, but he came back after it was Merdes, Schaible, Staley and DeLisio and he came back and I can't remember -- but he left again and ..... MS. WILLARD: At some point in there didn't Ed leave as well, Ed Merdes? MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. He left, oh, mid '80s, '82, '83 maybe, some place in there and it became Schaible, Staley, DeLisio and Cook. MS. WILLARD: So you retired in 1986? 192 MS. SCHAIBLE: I was going to retire at the end of 1986 and at that-- ..... MS. WILLARD: Okay. Let's transition ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: ..... at that point the Boy Scouts, Midnight Sun Council of the Boy Scouts of America had a program of honoring what they called distinguished citizens and I was the fourth person selected for this and they have a banquet and your life history is presented and it's a big event in Fairbanks. Nancy Ston-ington, the artist based in the State of Washington, came up and was the Mistress of Ceremonies for mine and talked about my life history. And you've seen the article, the speech that she gave, but in the meantime I was a regent of the University at that point and I had been visiting campuses of the statewide system in Kodiak, Bethel and Palmer. Well, I got stuck in Kodiak for an extra day or two and when I was going to Bethel, going through the airport in Anchorage, I was being paged and I said I can't stop, they're holding the plane to Bethel for me so I got aboard it, got to Bethel and asked to find out what the page was for and it was the Anchorage office, my Anchorage office. And so I called them and said what's going on and they said Tony Smith needs to talk with you and I said oh, well, I'll call him in due course. And I called Tony and he said we -- the Governor wants you to submit your name for Attorney General and I said crazy. Forget it. And went -- did my time in Bethel, spent the two or three days there because it was a chance to meet with 193 the students, the faculty and staff of the colleges during the school year. It was really important for me as a regent that I was not there just for commencement. MS. WILLARD: When did you become a regent? MS. SCHAIBLE: 1985. Governor Sheffield appointed me as a regent, but in any event I was visiting the colleges and we had got back to Anchorage and it was really miserable weather, but we did go up to Palmer so that I could meet with the campus there and then we skated on the roads back to Anchorage so that I could catch my flight to Fairbanks. And that, I thought that was, -- the Bethel thing was the end of it for me. I didn't -- I got home and as I usually did on Saturday afternoons I listened to the Metropolitan Opera and I turned on the opera and normally I let the phone -- they can ring, forget it on Saturday afternoons, I do not answer the phone. Well, this particular Saturday afternoon it was Pique Dame, the great Tschaikowsky opera about garnbl ing and I didn't know who the principal singers were. It's not a piece of Tschaikowsky I really care about, so the phone rang and I answered it and it was Tony and he said the Governor's not taking your answer. And I said Tony, I don't want to be the Attorney General, I am retiring. I promised the law firm that I will stay on for an additional year so that Barbara Schumann can have her sabbatical. Oh, well, I' 11 tell Steve and that was the end of that. The next day I get a call from -- not Tony, Steve Cowper. I got a call from Steve and he said I'm corning home for Thanksgiv- 194 ing. He'd been spending most of his time in Anchorage. I'm coming home for Thanksgiving. The day after Thanksgiving you're going to have to say no to my face. Okay, I said, but, you know, I've got my family arriving and I really don't know whether I can spend very much time. And he said, it will only take a little bit. And he said we'll meet at your office. Fine, Steve, I'll see you the day after Thanksgiving in my office which we met and he said I don't want you to give me an answer now, I want you to think about it and I don't really want an answer of no, but I want you to think about this. He said I am having a cabinet of really quite young people and I just, sort of, need an old -- a mature person as, sort of, let's train collegiali­ ty. And he said you've been the managing partner of a law firm probably longer than anybody else around and he said that's what I need is somebody who can manage a law firm, the biggest in the state. Okay, well, I'll think about it. My family is arriving because of this Boy Scout thing and I'll talk to them and I'll talk to my partners. So I talked to my family and my sister said I'm out of it. My brother said you do it and so -- well, that was, sort of, nice. My sister wouldn't commit one way or the other. My brother-in-law did and he said yes, you really ought to do it. My partners - - I promised I'd stay on so Barbara could have her sabbatical and they said we' 11 worry about that, you take the 195 position because you're the first woman to be AG and we'd love to have that happen to you, so ..... MS. WILLARD: And so far the last woman. MS. SCHAIBLE: So far the last woman, you never know what our new governor is going to do. MS. WILLARD: There's no word yet. MS. SCHAIBLE: No. MS. WILLARD: There are all sorts of rumors. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes, but in any event I called and this was before the inauguration and I called Steve and said everybody says it's okay, but I want you to understand I'm not going to do it for four years. And he said well, we'll agree that you can do it for two years. If you can't get everything done in two years than it can't be done. Oh, okay. And he said I will take care of a couple things in advance. And there's one thing I need to have you do. He said you're going back to Antarctica and I said yes, I'm going back to Antarctica and he said that's fine, but I need to have you before you go, go to a meeting of the Permanent Fund because I'm appoint­ ing you as Attorney General and as a member of the Permanent Fund Corporation, is a cabinet office. So that was it. Skip ..... MS. WILLARD: Well, now, before we go any further you have to explain what the Permanent Fund is. MS. SCHAIBLE: The Alaska Permanent Fund Corpora- tion, which is what I was being appointed to, was created by the Legislature to manage the Permanent Fund which was created by an 196 amendment to the Constitution of the State of Alaska. The Alaska Constitution prohibited funds from being earmarked for specific things. You could not dedicate a fund, but this one was to be dedicated to receive 25 percent of the royalties received from oil and gas development in Alaska. And the Fund was created -- it was managed by the Depart­ ment of Revenue not very carefully in the beginning and then the Permanent Fund Corporation was created to manage the Fund. And the requirement was that the Commissioner of Revenue and one other senior cabinet official that the Governor appointed be on the Board. Those positions were not subject to legislative approval other than what they had as their cabinet position and then three persons presumed to be knowledgeable in investments. MS. WILLARD: And what is the purpose of the Fund? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, there's an ongoing discussion of the Permanent -- what it's all about. Right now the main purpose is the distribution of money to each resident of Alaska. And every ..... MS. WILLARD: Yearly?

MS. SCHAIBLE: What? MS. WILLARD: Yearly? MS. SCHAIBLE: Annually. It' s based on the earnings of the Corporation over a five year period based on, what they've earned over a five year period, the average, so it's ..... MS. WILLARD: Maybe this would be a good point to stop for a break. 197

MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. (Off record) (On record) MS. WILLARD: What occurred to me over the noon hour is, perhaps, to fill in a bit. You've now been appointed Attorney General of the State of Alaska, but, perhaps, we should let people know a little bit about Governor Cowper. MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. Steve Cowper, originally from North Carolina, I think, came to Alaska, worked in the -- I don't know whether it was in the AG' s office or the DA' s office in Juneau, came to Fairbanks, worked here in the DA's office. Took some time off and went to Viet Nam as a reporter, came back and set himself up in private practice here. I don't know whether he went back to Viet Nam, but he disappeared for a while and then came back and ..... MS. WILLARD: Did you know that he worked in Anchorage for ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: No, I didn't. MS. WILLARD: . .... a period of time? Yes. MS. SCHAIBLE: No. Maybe that's where he went the second time. I think the first time he was in Viet Nam, but he disappeared and I don't know where he went, but came back and he shared office space with Bixler Whiting and that's when I really got to know him when he was sharing off ice space with Bixler because one of Bixler's closest friends was married to a friend of mine, so, but in any event, I'd known Steve all along. And 198 he ran for the Democratic nomination for governor. He was beat out by Bill Sheffield and I supported him in that run, but then when Sheffield got the nomination I supported Sheffield. And then, you know, after Sheffield's problems with various things ..... MS. WILLARD: Which we won't go into. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yeah, we won't go into. It isn't necessary, it's not important for this, but Steve decided to take on Sheffield again and got the Democratic nomination and because Sheffield had appointed me to the Board of Regents of the Universi­ ty I felt a loyalty to him and so in the prim- -- in the primary election I had supported Sheffield. And I got a call from Steve after the primary and after he'd beaten Sheffield and he said I heard this, that you're not going to support me in the general election. And I said Steve, you know why I supported Bill and he said yes, and that's why I didn't ask you to support me in the primary because I knew what it meant to you to be appointed to the Board of Regents and I respected the fact that you were supporting the man who made that appointment, but he said the rumor is that you're not going to support me and I said Steve, you know, I've supported you all the time because I had supported him when he ran for the Legislature and so that was okay. And I said, but you've got to tell me what you need me to do because I have a trip to China planned and I'll be gone for about a month and -- but I have some time before I go and he said I'll put you in touch. Well, he never did. I didn't do a thing for his election except support him, got some people that I knew to 199 support him, also and that -- but that was about it so it came as quite a surprise to me that he wanted me as his AG. When I did meet with him he started to say an old broad and I finished the sentence for him and I said you just want the old broad from Fairbanks and he said that's fine, you said it, I didn't, but that's truly and most people most people recognized the fact that I was the eldest one of the -- oldest member of the cabinet. MS. WILLARD: You also - - another name that we should probably just elaborate on a bit that you'd mentioned earlier and that's Tony Smith. MS. SCHAIBLE: Tony Smith. Well, Tony was a lawyer, represented the Aleut Corporation which is basically how I got to know him. And I know very little about his practice because, you know, I didn't have any reason to know it, but he was a major person in the transition -- transition team that Cowper put together. And he became Commissioner of what, Administration. MS. WILLARD: Administration. MS. SCHAIBLE: Commissioner of Administration in the Cowper administration, so ..... MS. WILLARD: So you served as Attorney General for two years? MS. SCHAIBLE: Two years and two weeks. MS. WILLARD: Okay. And the ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: And so that's two weeks I stayed on because Steve Cowper thought that for the first time in the history 200 of the Attorney General's office there could be a real transition. Normally there's never any transition. And so I stayed on so that my good friend could follow me. MS. WILLARD: And that was -- so that was 1987 to 1989? MS. SCHAIBLE: Nine, um-hum, February of 1989. MS. WILLARD: Is there anything about that period as Attorney General of the State of Alaska or maybe more than one something that sticks ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, there were a lot MS. WILLARD: ..... out in your mind? MS. SCHAIBLE: ..... there were a lot of issues. The first thing that Steve asked me to do when I got to Juneau -- he didn't want me to make any changes in the staff of the AG's office. He wanted to get rid of one of the district attorneys. He did that while I was in Antarctica and when I came back the man was no longer on the staff. And he didn't want me to make any changes in the AG's office until I had been there for a while, but what he wanted me to do was to review all of the pending cases, outline for him those that involved state liability, a possible state liability of a million dollars or more and any -- any case that involved a major policy question. And so when I met with Ron Lorensen, who had been the deputy for many years, I told him what I wanted him to prepare for me so that when I got to Juneau I'd have that to examine and decide 201 which cases I wanted to review and so that I could do this report for the Governor and that was -- it was a major review because it has never been done. It was just, sort of, every Attorney General concentrated on what was really of interest to them. I had to concentrate on what was of interest to the Governor and as an attorney he wanted that kind of information that hadn't been done. Sheffield had no desire to have -- he lost his Attorneys General and he just didn't have any desire to do that. And I don't think that any of the prior Governors had really ever done that, taken a look at what the State's possible liabilities were in tort actions. MS. WILLARD: I'm trying to think, had we ever had a governor prior to Steve who was an attorney? MS. SCHAIBLE: Not in Statehood. MS. WILLARD: Yes, definitely not after Statehood that I can think of. MS. SCHAIBLE: No, not since Statehood, but I was trying to think of -- yeah, we had two. No, I was trying to think of -- there was one -- no, he wasn't governor. No, I don't -- I don't think -- I've known every governor -- every Attorney General from the time the office was created in 1916, I've known every one except one and he only served two years before I was born, but all of the Attorneys General had lived so that I knew who they were, George Grigsby being the first. I knew George and everyone that followed him except this one, but I don't think that we had. I think Steve is probably the first ..... 202

MS. WILLARD: Yes . MS. SCHAIBLE: .. .. . first that was an attorney. MS. WILLARD: Well, in any event, I just thought ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: But, anyway, that one was the major one. Then we had cases where we lost and the losses were of policy matters that were of major concern to the Cowper Administration and we lost in the Supreme Court. And one of them is the whole scheme of subsistence that they had put together and it made a major difference. And we had really great people working on some of these cases. Coming out of private practice with no prior government experience, I had a different view of hiring practices that that I didn't find it a very fair thing for you to make a move to move someone into a dtfferent position without making that position available for anyone else to apply. I just -- it just didn't -- it didn't sit right with me. And the same thing with the risk managers. Risk managers had a bad habit of hiring the same people all the time and I thought that the risk managers ought to have a requirement of opening it up and that was a battle that was fought and I can't say that I really won it, but at least·r made dents in what they were doing and ..... MS. WILLARD: Well, and now they advertise every position. 203

MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes, um-hum, but they didn't at that time.

MS. WILLARD: No, I know.

MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes.

MS. WILLARD: So I think you probably did have quite an impact. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. Well, it was just - - to me it was a matter of fairness that you just didn't give all the work to one firm. MS. WILLARD: Well, and I think also what they've done regardless sometimes they advertise just to say they've done it ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. MS. WILLARD: ..... when they fully intend ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes, yes. MS. WILLARD: ..... where it's going to go anyhow. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. And I didn't like -- it just bothered me. And, as a result, we didn' t al ways get the very, very best people because they didn't like the process. They were so used to the old process that they just didn't express any interest because they weren't sure that they were going to get the job, whereas, they always had been assured that they'd get the job before they applied.

We didn't always end up with the very best because of this, but at least we -- private practitioners felt for the first time that if there was someone in private practice that wanted to 204 go into government service they had a chance instead of being plucked so -- but I really had such a fabulous deputy that the day to day management of it I could -- I felt was in good hands and he consulted constantly. I mean, his office was right next to mine and boy, we were just together all the time talking. And he agreed sometimes with policy changes that I was making and sometimes he tried to talk me out of them and sometimes I guess I would be talked out of them if he could give me a good, logical reason. One of the things that the state had not pursued, to my knowledge, very often were anti-trust actions. I couldn't believe that we had so little history of anti-trust actions in the state. And one came up when I was there and the attorney in charge wanted to settle it and I said this is a case that can be settled, but not on their terms, on our terms. Oh. Well, we just don't have that many occasions, what do we do. And I said you negotiate and he didn't know how to negotiate, really didn't know how to negotiate, and so I said okay, you haven't done this before I will set you some standards and for the first time the company that we were dealing with said, they've -- you know, that damn lady is setting standards for negotiations. Well, they finally figured out that I wasn't going to back away and we did get my first anti-trust case resolved in favor of the state, not in favor of the people who chose to be monopolis­ tic so -- but there were things like that, that the difference of 205 my coming out of only private practice made a difference that the state hadn't seen before. And it's not anything that most of the public could care about, thank God, but one of the most difficult decisions that I had to make was a criminal case whether to affirm a decision to retry it or whether to abandon it and it was a very complicated case. The criminal division just couldn't see the full distance and they weren't helping me see the full distance. I met with the attorneys defending and they didn't help. I was getting absolutely no help in trying to reaffirm or cancel a decision that had been made to retry a case and I finally called the Attorney General who had made the decision and we sat down and talked and he told me why he had made the decision and I agreed that was a good enough reason for -- you know, one trial that ended in a hung jury was not a resolution of the case. MS. WILLARD: Was that a southeastern case?

MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes.

MS. WILLARD: Yes, um-hum.

MS. SCHAIBLE: And so I made the decision not to change Hal Brown's decision who was the prior Attorney General and boy, did I ever get blasted. And the came case to trial and the party was acquitted and everybody said well, you should have known. I had no way of knowing, no way of knowing. Neither the defendant­ 's attorneys or my own criminal division could help me with that 206 decision. They just -- neither one of them. I just didn't get any help. Of course, the press immediately responded and I said the jury has spoken. Is there anything more I can add. No, the jury has spoken and that's it, but that was really a tough decision. It was really a tough decision and I got a lot of criticism from people whose· opinion made a big difference to me and I decided I'm not going to do any more -- any more criminal stuff like this. I just don't want to -- I don't want to do it. I don't want to get involved, but ..... MS. WILLARD: How many people were in the public law firm that you were charged with overseeing? MS. SCHAIBLE: How many people or attorneys? MS. WILLARD: Attorneys. MS. SCHAIBLE: Attorneys. I think there were 150 attorneys. There was slightly over 300 people. That included legislative liaisons, accounting, the financial people and then the paralegals and the secretaries. And the really astonishing thing about the state system was that it was a merit system for all of the clerical staff, none there was not one person on the clerical staff who was a qualified legal secretary and the paralegals were qualified, but the secretaries. The only secretary who was qualified was my secretary who was an exempt position and so she did all of the things. The people in the DA's office, the criminal division, had secretaries who could do the day to day business, couldn't do a brief. The 207 briefs all had to come over to my secretary and my secretary had to train staff. MS. WILLARD: Incredible. MS. SCHAIBLE: It's incredible, it really is, but that's the way the system worked that you -- the registers for clerical were wide open and if you could type and if you could transcribe you got a job and whether you knew how to do anything in a law office made no difference. I just -- that was one thing about government service that just really ticked me off, but my secretary was an absolute dream. I mean, she had worked for me for many years and she wanted to go to Juneau with me and ..... MS. WILLARD: So you brought her in? MS. SCHAIBLE: I brought her with me because that secretarial position is the only exempt position in the Department of Law. MS. WILLARD: Right. MS. SCHAIBLE: And you can imagine what the Anchorage office was faced with. MS. WILLARD: Well, I'm thinking about the Appellate Division in particular. MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, the Appellate Di vision in Anchorage got only qualified people. They had to, yes. They had to, but the people doing the appeals in the other offices didn't have it. They had to hire off the register and I don't know how the Appeals Division got special dispensation, but they did. 208 MS. WILLARD: Amazing. Is there anything else that strikes you that you'd like to talk about during those two years and two weeks as Attorney General of the State of Alaska? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, I got to know a lot of extremely competent attorneys because I -- one thing that Governor Cowper asked that I do was to revive the Criminal Justice Working Group which had been created to receive federal funds for special projects dispersed by this special Criminal Justice Working Group and -- but the federal funds had dried up, but the organization still existed in law so my job was to revive that and make it one that dealt with the rural area where the other one dealt principal­ ly with the urban area. Some funds did, sort of, drift down to the rural areas, but not much and his interest was making certain that the criminal justice system worked in the rural areas and there was real concern about that. Chief Justice Rabinowitz had talked with Steve -- had talked with the Governor about the importance of this and he came and talked to me and said that he would like to have Art Snowden who was the Administrator of the Court System represent he courts in that. And Dana Fabe at that time ·was the head of the Public Defender office and she came aboard and so we were able to have a pretty good working group. I had persuaded Larry Weeks with the help of Hal Brown, thank you, to come back as the head of the Criminal Division. It just -- an absolutely perfect person and, of course, he was the 209 real person that drove this. I mean, I was there and I used what influence I could on it, but it was a wonderful organization of people really interested in bringing some new ideas and thoughts into the criminal justice working system for the rural areas. MS. WILLARD: Perhaps we should pause at this point to explain for the record who Larry Weeks and Hal Brown are?

MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. Well, Hal Brown was my immediate predecessor as the Attorney General. He had replaced an Attorney General who had been involved with the problems in the Sheffield Administration. And not -- you know, he wasn't -- he was not attached to the scandal, but he was attached to the person who was and Hal Brown came in to settle that. And that was one of the reasons, I think, the Cowper wanted me because I had a statewide perspective and was known as somebody that you couldn't corrupt and he wanted that assurance in the system. And not -- nothing against Hal Brown except that he was part he was the final appointment of the Sheffield Adminis- tration, but Hal later went to -- I can't remember the name of the law firm that he was in, in Anchorage. MS. WILLARD: Well, he went with the executive directorship of the Judicial Council ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, was that it? MS. WILLARD: ..... next. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, next and then he went into private practice with Heller Ehrman. 210 MS. WILLARD: Heller Ehrman. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. And then he was appointed to the Superior Court bench in Kenai. MS. WILLARD: Yes. MS. SCHAIBLE: Larry Weeks. Larry Weeks has a long history of public prosecution. He was the DA in Anchorage. He was the DA in Juneau. He left to go into private practice and I brought him back out of private practice to head the Criminal Division when -- I was trying to think of who the previous head -­ the name of the previous head -- senior moments. He went to Guam and, you know, places like that -- well, anyway, but when he left I needed to get a new head. I discussed it with my deputy and I met with Larry and he was a little, little reluctant because he hadn't been in private practice that long and he was, kind of, enjoying it and then Hal Brown -- I called Hal Brown and Hal helped bring him back in. And he served there all the time. Just a wonderful person to work with. Then, after I left the AG's office, Cowper made a trip to Fairbanks ..... MS. WILLARD: Did what? MS. SCHAIBLE: The Governor made a trip to Fair­ banks, said he needed to talk to me about a judicial appointment. A judicial appointment, what do you mean? He said two names had come up Larry Weeks and Ron Lorensen. Ron had been my deputy and Larry had been the head of the Criminal Division and 211 he said you probably know them -- the two of them better than anybody else whose judgment I trust. Well, I just felt like I was on the horns of a dilemma because both of them were just such wonderful people. And I finally -- it broke my heart, but I had to choose and I told Steve that I thought that Larry Weeks should be his appointment because his experience was much broader than Ron Lorensen's. Ron had never had any private practice. He had never had any prosecutorial experience and I thought that that's something a Superior Court Judge needed and so I recommended Larry. That was very difficult for me because I had the utmost admiration for Ron Lorensen and still do. MS. WILLARD: Who succeeded you when you did your stint as you had promised to? MS. SCHAIBLE: Doug Bailey. MS. WILLARD: Who? MS. SCHAIBLE: Doug Bailey. Doug had -- and I think that Steve Cowper agreed so readily to my two years was that that's how long Doug Bailey was going to be gone on his travels around the world by boat -- by sailboat. MS. WILLARD: And so you -- did you live in Juneau during this ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes. Um-hum, yes. I -- my accountant who also had been with Arctic Slope Regional Corporation and was also doing some special work for SeaAlaska Corporation one of the regional corporations under ANCSA, was aware of the fact 212 that the economy in Juneau was -- because of the oil prices was just in the dumps and he said go buy yourself a house. Buy the right house and then when you leave after your two years you can give it to the University and you can use that tax write-off. Okay, so that's what I did. I bought a house, completely redecorated it. It was decorated in orange and pumpkin -- I mean pumpkin and black, Halloween colors and I completely redecorated it and when I left Juneau it went to the University. MS. WILLARD: And I take it at that point you returned to Fairbanks? MS. SCHAIBLE: I returned to Fairbanks. Well, after I left the office I didn't move out of Juneau right away, but I left Juneau and went on a trip. I didn't want to I didn't want to be around when Doug was taking over. I thought it advisable for me to disappear, but I wasn't ready to leave because I had to make certain that everything was going to go fine in this transition from me to the University and so I went Outside. I went to Harrison Hot Springs (in British Columbia) for a couple of weeks and did physiotherapy. Discovered that I was in much worse shape than I thought I was and then went to visit my sister in California. And I came back about a week before Good Friday. And if you remember what happened on Good Friday of 1989 a tanker ended up on Bligh Reef. MS. WILLARD: In Prince William Sound. 213 MS. SCHAIBLE: In.Prince William Sound with a major oil spill. Doug Bailey called me and said I have a problem in Valdez, would you like to go take care of it for me? And I said what's the problem and he described it to me and I said not a chance. That is the one attorney in your office that never could accept the fact that a woman from Yale was the AG and he just made a huge mess and I just didn't feel capable of cleaning up that mess. And I don't know what Doug did, but I backed out on that one. I had plans in July to get back to Fairbanks. And then in September I was going around the world with friends of mine for the second time and then in November I was taking a freighter from

Baltimore going to England where I was going to live for six months, so I didn't really want any of this to get delayed, so ..... MS. WILLARD: So I assume you did all of that as you had originally ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes .

. MS. WILLARD: . . . . . planned? MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes, um-hum.

MS. WILLARD: You came back from England then about when? MS. SCHAIBLE: In 1990.

MS. WILLARD: Um-hum.

MS. SCHAIBLE: I went back with the law firm which had changed its name again. They had to change it when I left and then they -- the two offices split up and so it became Cook, 214 Schumann and Groseclose here in Fairbanks and in Anchorage it was DeLisio, Moran, Geraghty and Zobel. And I came back to Fairbanks as Of Counsel. I had probably at that point about eight clients that just really wanted me to finish up their estate plans and I did some of that. Pretty soon it dwindled down till I had three finally left and they just wouldn't put things together so that we could finish their estate plans and so I gave them notice that I would be retiring. I gave them a year's notice in writing that I was going to be retiring again and if you want your estate planned you better call me and make arrangements. And so they didn't and I don't know whether they ..... MS. WILLARD: Ever did? MS. SCHAIBLE: Ever did, if there's any ..... MS. WILLARD: So you've now retired for a second time? MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes, um-hum. MS. WILLARD: And what year was that? MS. SCHAIBLE: '92, '95, I don't remember, don't remember. MS. WILLARD: Okay. MS. SCHAIBLE: But I just came in and plucked my name off the wall and said this is it, but I'm just as busy now as when I ..... MS. WILLARD: Yes. Tell -- let's get started on that. What -- since your retirement what have you been doing? 215 MS. SCHAIBLE: Since my retirement. Well I've done a lot of traveling. I love polar bears and I've gone to the Canadian Arctic a lot and then discovered Svalbard, found Spitzber­ gen and the Isles of the Svalbard Archipelago and I go there almost every year and spend a few weeks watching polar bears. And, let's see, when I came back from my six months in England Governor Cowper had recommended to Susan Ruddy, who was the head of the Nature Conservancy in Alaska, that she might want to talk to me about becoming a member of the Nature Conservancy because I've been a long time member of the World Wildlife Fund and the two organizations are very similar. They're non-litigation. They work quietly doing their thing and the only time they ever hire an attorney is on contracts to make certain that the contracts are correct. Susan had talked to me before I'd gone and I said no, talk to me when I get back and so she did and we -- I went on the Board of the Nature Conservancy and really enjoyed it. Gave me a chance to see things happen in a different way in Alaska and I like that. When I was with Arctic Slope Regional Corporation I had taken a lot of guff because Fairbanks was such a difficult town. And actually during that time I had served - - when I was with Arctic Slope I had become involved with things happening in my own town. seeing if I could help improve it. I got appointed to the Fairbanks Development Board which was really trying to clear away the multitude of liquor establish- 216 ments on Second Avenue in Fairbanks and we weren't successful, but we did start assembling land that is ultimately now used for the park on the river, for the site of a hotel which we weren't able to arrange. But it brought me back into a different aspect of life and for the first time I became active in the Chamber of Commerce and did that for a long time, but then, you know, that's not really my bag. Then, I was a member of the College of Fellows for the

University of Alaska Fairbanks. We were having a meeting and it was a meeting of the foundation, University Foundation. And at that point Edith Bullock, a long-time Alaskan, was retiring from the board of the University Foundation and they had nominated Willie Hensley as the person to take her place. John O'Shea from Anchorage just went wild. He said only one candidate and not a woman. There's only one woman on that board and you're not going to replace that one woman with another woman? I nominate all the women who are members of the College of Fellows. And I think there were five of us. And Helen Atkinson said no, she had plans, couldn't do it. Arliss Sturgulewski was in the Legislature, she couldn't do it. I can' t remember who the others were. They couldn't do it. They ended up with me as the nominee. And I beat Willie Hensley. So ..... MS. WILLARD: So, explain Willie ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Willie Hensley is a Native leader from Kotzebue. Just an incredibly capable individual. One of the leaders in the Native Claims Settlement Act. One of the leaders in 217 the organization of -- the reorganization of the Alaska Federation of Natives. Just -- he's just one of the great Native leaders. MS. WILLARD: And as charismatic as could be. MS. SCHAIBLE: What?

MS. WILLARD: And as charismatic as could be. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. Yes. He knew everybody ever involved in Native leadership, not only in Alaska, but in Canada and in Greenland. So, it was just an absolutely magic man that I beat. It was largely because this one man said Edith Bullock was going off. We'd better replace her with a woman. And I got on the Board of the University Foundation where my reception was not very pleasant. Because Edith Bullock was a business woman who had a wide acquaintanceship among the leaders of the state. I didn't. I was an attorney, not an exactly favored group of people. And the Fairbanks people just, oh, that woman, she's just going to change everything. Well, I did change everything. I changed a lot of attitudes. But that was, I think, in 1982, something like that. And I've been on that board ever since. I'm an Emeritus member serving the rest of my life. I served as an officer for 14 years or 15 years, we had term limits. And then when I was president Ann Parrish who was supposed to follow me decided she wanted to change the term limits so I could serve another term before she came on. MS. WILLARD: So you changed more than attitudes? 218 MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes, oh, yes. No, it grew. The university did take some very major steps. They turned over the land grant trust funds to us to manage. And ..... MS. WILLARD: You might explain what the land grant trust funds are. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, okay. Well, every the University of Alaska is a land grant college, but it -- the land grant activities are centered at UAF because it was the original university. And part of the land grant was four sections of land that were given as the site for the university, plus lands in the Tanana Valley that were surveyed and very little of it was surveyed, but that was the land grant. And the Congress did provide 100,000 acres in 1929 and the Statehood Act took away all of the remaining acreage that had never been surveyed. So the university doesn't have a huge land grant considering the size of the state. It should be the largest land grant college in the United States, but it's not. So yes, University of Alaska has -­ and it's University of Alaska Fairbanks is the land grant, sea grant and space grant college. But as a result I've been very active with the universi­ ty. Served as, you know, a Regent, and then as an officer of the foundation. MS. WILLARD: Talk a bit about your service as a Regent. 219 MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, it was a short period of time, two years. And that's not very long because I couldn't be both a Regent and the Attorney General. MS. WILLARD: Right. MS. SCHAIBLE: I had to make a choice and I chose to be the Attorney General. But the Foundation, at a point, created an investment committee to invest the funds of the Foundation which were growing slowly. It took a big leap when I agreed, together with Joe Usibelli and Bob McMillen of Tote, to run the first capital campaign for any of the campuses and that was here in Fairbanks. MS. WILLARD: I know that you were involved with the Permanent Fund Division Corporation in your capacity as Attorney General.

MS. SCHAIBLE: Uh-hum. MS. WILLARD: Did you have yet another ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes ..... MS. WILLARD: ..... stint ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: ..... I did. When Tony Knowles became Governor in 1995 he asked if I would go back on the board as a public member and instead of the AG. And so I said yes, I would really, really like to do that and so I did. I went back on the board. And the prior governor to Governor Knowles was Wally Hickel. And Wally Hickel had fired all of the members of the board and appointed new ones. I mean he had to appoint two cabinet 220 members and that was -- you know, but he just terminated all of the public members. And ..... MS. WILLARD: I think he terminated all of the public members of every committee in the State. MS. SCHAIBLE: I don't know. All I know is what he did with the Permanent Fund Board. And when Tony Knowles became Governor he did the same thing. And I got a call from Bob Storer, who was the acting Commissioner of Revenue. I was living in Sitka as I usually do in the winter months. And I had to get to Juneau to go to my first board meeting. I went over and met the only hold over appointment that Governor Knowles kept who was John Kelsey. MS. WILLARD: Who? MS. SCHAIBLE: John Kelsey. John is a long-time resident of Valdez, who made his home both in Valdez and in Anchorage. And he was the only member that Tony Knowles -- he didn't do a complete term, so he kept John Kelsey because John Kelsey had been appointed by Cowper. I served with John before. And he was the chairman. And the first thing they did was elect me as the vice-chair because I was the only one who'd ever served on the Permanent Fund Board before. And so then John Kelsey's term expired in June and I became the chair. MS. WILLARD: And how long did you serve? MS. SCHAIBLE: '95 to '97 -- no, did I serve -- did -- I can't remember whether I served two and a half years or ..... MS. WILLARD: That's what I thought. I've got '95 to '97. 221 MS. SCHAIBLE: '95 to '97, I guess. Yeah, two and a half years. MS. WILLARD: As I understand even in that capacity you were the first and only woman ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes. MS. WILLARD: ..... who served on the Permanent Fund Board. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. But fortunately for me things had changed a great deal in the Permanent Fund. The Legislature finally understood that if you invest only in bonds you're never going to make what you need to make in order to grow the Fund. And I wasn't fighting that battle that I had fought when I was on the board before as the Attorney General and totally useless, you know. But we changed investment advisors, consultants. And they had. They'd already made those changes and they were good changes. And it wasn't too long before we had an entirely new staff of Permanent Fund. It was a good experience. And the one thing that I insisted that we do is during the time when the Legislature was not in session that we meet around the state in the smaller communities. And they had been actually Dave Rose who had been the executive director had done that a few times and found

it quite useful to have the meetings so we extended that. We had more meetings out of Juneau. MS. WILLARD: And what is the length of the term for the Permanent Fund Board?

MS. SCHAIBLE: What? 222

MS. WILLARD: What was the length of the term? MS. SCHAIBLE: Four years. MS. WILLARD: Okay. It appears you only served about two and a half? MS. SCHAIBLE: Two and a half. MS. WILLARD: Why was that? MS. SCHAIBLE: Because there were things I wanted to do. MS. WILLARD: Well, what's what I thought. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. MS. WILLARD: What was it? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, I liked to travel. MS. WILLARD: Yes. MS. SCHAIBLE: And it was just very difficult for me to plan major trips, to be gone for six weeks, eight weeks at a time. And during this same period of time I was spending a lot of time living in England. And that's how I really got to know Tony Knowles. When he ran the first time for mayor of Anchorage, a good Republican friend of mine who is connected with Arctic Slope said, Grace, I've got a Democratic that's a comer. I want you to support him. He's a good friend, so I supported Tony Knowles from the first time he ran for mayor of Anchorage. The second time he ran for mayor of Anchorage. When the first time he was thinking about running for Governor I was living in England and he called me in England and said Byron Mallott wants you to be the co-chair of my campaign. I said Tony, I'm here, I'm not coming home until June 223 and then I'm really not going to be available for a month or two. But when he did run for Governor the second time I was there. MS. WILLARD: What, in particular -- it sounds like you've spent quite a bit of time in England. What in particu­ lar ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. It's just a beautiful place. I love the Cotswolds. And I try to find a different village to go to. I love being there in the winter. And my sister and brother­ in-law and my nephews would come to visit in the winter. And we'd have Christmas, family Christmas, in Broadway and it -- I just loved being there. And it brought it took me away from all of the hassles of life in Alaska. And quite frankly, it took me away from having to say no, I will not; no, I don't have time. MS. WILLARD: I take it during those sojourns you didn't there was nothing very much law related going on in your life? MS. SCHAIBLE: No, I was completely retired by the time I was doing most of that. MS. WILLARD: I also understand that -- and I'm not sure when it commenced, but I know it hasn't ended. That you've had a great lot to do with the Sitka Summer Music Festival. Perhaps you could talk about that a bit? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes. Well, the founder of the Sitka Summer Music Festival is a violinist named Paul Rosenthal who came to Alaska in the late '60s. He rented a small cabin up the hill from where I lived in Fairbanks belonging to our neighbor. 224 And at the beginning he was preparing to go to the Tschaikowsky competitions in Moscow. And I used to go and sit on my neighbor's back stoop and listen to him practice. We became good friends. His brother, who was a bassoonist, was the first in the family to come to Alaska. And he came up to visit him and fell in love with Alaska. Brought his wife up. And they lived in Fairbanks or College for awhile. He went off to the competitions, came back and decided he was going to make Alaska his home. He joined the faculty of the University of Alaska Fair­ banks, the music department there. Went on tour with the Arctic Chamber Orchestra which had been founded by Gordon Wright, the conductor of the symphony and a faculty member at the university. And they went to Sitka. They flew around in a DC-3 going various places that didn't have an opportunity to get professional musicians. And they went to Sitka which had recently built the Centennial Hall. A gorgeous setting looking out on East Channel. The stage is all windows in the back. Paul just thought it was an absolutely fabulous venue, so he went to one of the staff members of Sheldon Jackson College and said do you think we could put together a music festival here. And in 1972 they did put together a music festival. His wife -- both he and his wife were Masters class people. In fact, Paul was the Master class person for Jasha Heifetz, I can't remember whether it was USC or UCLA. It doesn't make any difference, but it was in the Los Angeles area. And another woman, Japanese, Yuki Yokami, also a violinist and Nick 225 Rosen, the first American Gold Medalist at the Tschaikowsky competition on the cello who had been a student of Gregor Piati­ gorski also in Los Angeles. They -- Doris Stevenson who had been Piatigorski's Master class accompanist pianist. They all went to Sitka and created a Sitka Summer Music Festival in 1972. In 1972 my husband and I were traveling. In 1973 I started with Arctic Slope. I supported them, but I could never go. And it wasn't until I went to Juneau as the AG that I found a way to get to Sitka. And I've been a financial supporter of them for a long time. Been very active with their foundation. And now I spend the month of -- well, three weeks of June in Sitka going to the music festival. And I go to two weekends in Anchorage for the Autumn Classics and one weekend in February in Anchorage for the Winter Classics. MS. WILLARD: And how long have you been doing that? MS. SCHAIBLE: Since 1995. MS. WILLARD: You know, I think this would be a good point to break. I'm very optimistic that at our next session we should ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes, we should. MS. WILLARD: ..... be able to finish. MS. SCHAIBLE: It's just, because the rest of my life has just been ..... MS. WILLARD: Oh, I've got some other things to ask you.

MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, you do. 226 MS. WILLARD: But I think we can finish next time. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, okay. MS. WILLARD: Thank you, Grace.

(END OF PROCEEDINGS) VOLUME V

INTERVIEW OF GRACE BERG SCHAIBLE December 15, 2006 227

P R O C E E D I N G S

MS. WILLARD It is December 15th, 2006. We are in

Fairbanks, Alaska at the law firm of Cook, Schumann & Groseclose.

With me is Grace Berg Schaible. My name is Donna Willard-Jones. Now, let's see where we were, Grace, when we visited last. I think we had been listing or talking about some of the various boards and groups that you have been involved in. And after watching the tape I came up with some other names that I don't believe we've talked about, and perhaps we could do that for just a few minutes. One was the Fairbanks Symphony. MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, I started with them when they started. No, I actually was the librarian starting in 1959 and I did that for about a year and a half. And the conductor was just sort of a part-time person and not very well organized, and he kept losing the library pieces, the parts. And I just finally said, you know, I have other things I needed to do, but I've been a long-time supporter of them, but I no longer have any role other than support. MS. WILLARD: Another name I ran across was the Literary Council of Alaska. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes, Literacy Council of Alaska. MS. WILLARD: Yes, Literacy Council, sorry. MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, that still remains one of my very favorite charities. It's something I believe in. It's they went through a period of not being able to finance what they needed to do. The Literacy Council not only does English as a 228 second language, but they also do regular literacy work for people who can't read. And more than that they have computer programs so that people learn how to do more than just read. They learn how to compute. I was on their board for I don't know how many years. I really loved it. And then when I retired, it became extremely difficult for me to make monthly meetings and so I resigned. They made me an honorary member of the Literacy Counc i 1 because I support them through United Way. I've always been a supporter of United Way and I used to designate the money for the Literacy Council. Now it's -- I still give through the United Way, but I've increased my giving to United Way and so I've increased the amount that goes to the Literacy Council. Not all of it goes now, but a good half of it. But they keep me well informed. I'm very proud of what they have done in this community as far as literacy is concerned.

We still -- they still have a lot of English as a seco~d language largely because of the university. The wives of foreign born professors really need English as a second language, and they've had great strides there. The thing that I really appreciate is the after school tutoring, one on one with children who are having difficulty reading in elementary school. And in the summer they have high school students as tutors for kids who are still having problems. And they've done a lot. They also have a family program where parents who are semi-literate can go improve their reading ability 229 together with their children. And it saves a lot of children from being way behind in school if their parents go and learn to read at a better rate than they did before so they' re doing a lot of imaginative things. And I'm very, very proud of ever having been associated with them. MS. WILLARD: Another one I ran across was the Rotary Club. And I think you ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes. Yes, I joined in the Rotary Club in Juneau when I was the Attorney General because I've always wanted to be a member of Rotary. Because in most Alaskan communi­ ties, not necessarily in Anchorage, but in most Alaskan communi­ ties, the power in the community is divided between the Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club. And I did my time with the Chamber of Commerce here. And I felt like I was excluded from half of a power, but in Juneau I was invited to join the Rotary which I did. I was inducted on the Noordam, a Holland America line ship sitting in the harbor in Juneau and it was nice. The problem was that, with my schedule, I could not be guaranteed that I would make many of the meetings. And I tried to do make-ups when I was traveling, that didn't work, so I was a very poor Rotarian in Juneau. When I came back to Fairbanks after I was gone because I made a trip around the world and then went to live in England for six months, when I came back the pressure was on for me to join Rotary here. And ..... MS. WILLARD: In Fairbanks? 230 MS. SCHAIBLE: In Fairbanks. And so I did. I did join Rotary. And I remain an active member of Rotary, but and I've had perfect attendance ever since I've joined here in Fairbanks, but I serve just on a couple of events. I hand out the bids for the Chena River Run which is one of our big fund raisers. And I contribute generously to -- well, to the Paul Harris Fellows which is the actual operational funds for Rotary worldwide, but for me more important in more recent years I have contributed to the it is the Permanent Fund within the Rotary Foundation. And that is the earnings from that Permanent Fund which supports various programs that I really favor more than I do just sort of the operational funds. MS. WILLARD: I still want to save the museum and the polar bears for a little later on. MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. MS. WILLARD: So I think I'm going to move around a bit. You're noted, it goes without saying, for the tremendous charitable contributions that you've made throughout the years to any variety of organizations including the ones we talked about. I believe that led to an award, did it not? MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes, I received the award as the Philanthropist of the Year, from -- it's a group that are fund raisers for non-profits, charitable organizations. I got that award because a group of people had combined to nominate me. And it was Sheldon Jackson College, the Nature Conservancy, and the University, University of Alaska Fairbanks. 231 MS. WILLARD: Did we put on the record any sort of description about what Sheldon Jackson College is? If not, maybe we should. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh. Well, Sheldon Jackson College is the oldest educational institution in Alaska. It was started in the 1870s as a trade school for Alaska Native, training principally in boat building, fishing, what have you. And it was, I think, basically an elementary school. It was named for Sheldon Jackson who was a Presbyterian missionary, but more important was the first head of the Bureau of Education for the District of Alaska, before it became a Territory. And he imported Presbyterian missionaries throughout Southeastern Alaska who were also educators. And they started all kinds of educational institutions and the orphanage in Haines. The First Presbyterian Church in the Interior of Alaska was here in Fairbanks. But it was - Sheldon Jackson was the Native school. There were no well, there were occasional white students that went, but mostly Native because if was funded by the Bureau of Education for Natives. And someplace along the line they added a high school. And in the early '50s, I think it was, they became a junior college. They abandoned the elementary program and they had a high school and junior college. They dropped the high school and became a four year college. And it's still existing. The campus in Sitka is one that was designed by the Presbyterian Board of Missions architect. It was probably the only place in Alaska where you had a planned community. It's a 232 beautiful campus. Some of the view has been destroyed, but it's still a lovely campus. And it's a college that is struggling constantly. And I did some volunteer work because the director of development was somebody I had known from time in Barrow. She used to work for the North Slope Borough and I knew her in Barrow. And when she came down there she asked if I would help knowing that as a Presbyterian I would know some of the alums and she wanted to organize the alumni association. But I remain a supporter of the college. The money that I give is always earmarked for debt retirement because the scholarship programs aren't going to go any place if they don't get the debt taken care of. So ..... MS. WILLARD: So it was one of the sponsors for the Outstanding Philanthropist of the Year Award. Who else was there that sponsored you? MS. SCHAIBLE: What? MS. WILLARD: The sponsors ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. They nominated me. The development people well, the president and the development director nominated me for that because of the charitable work I had done for Sheldon Jackson over the years. Because it was a place where we used to -- well, the Presbyterians held their Youth Conference. And during the Second World War we couldn't use the campus because of military consider­ ations. And so we -- it was in 1942 we held it in Wrangell at Wrangell Institute which was the Bureau of Indian Affairs campus. 233 And then they didn't have one in 1943. And then in '44 they asked me, since I was no longer eligible to be a participant, if I'd go help organize the conference at Sheldon Jackson in Sitka. MS. WILLARD: Okay. And I believe the year of that award which I understand was granted by the National Society of Fund Raising Executives ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. MS. WILLARD: ..... Alaska Chapter ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Uh-hum. MS. WILLARD: ..... was 1996? MS. SCHAIBLE: I can't remember the year. I'd have to go look at the award. It's one of the few awards that I keep on display at my home. MS. WILLARD: But you've had a number of others. Why don't you tell us about some of the others? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, the Alaskan of the Year. MS. WILLARD: Explain that. MS. SCHAIBLE: The State Chamber sponsors the Alaskan of the Year. The award is named the Bill Egan Award for Alaska's first State Governor. And it was unfortunate that I wasn't able to receive the award in person because I had promised the Nature Conservancy that I would be in Tucson where I was receiving another award. That one was an award, I think, that came from the staff of the Nature Conservancy in Alaska as, I don't know, mentor or something, whatever it was. But I had promised faithfully that I would be there before I knew about the other 234 award, so that one was accepted on my behalf by Dave Cook from Fairbanks. And then later presented to me here in Fairbanks by the Fairbanks Chamber. MS. WILLARD: And others? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, Junior Achievement. MS. WILLARD: Tell me about Junior Achievement. What is it and ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, Junior Achievement is an organization to introduce youth. I can't remember the exact ages, but I think that they're probably fifth grade to high school, to business. Learning how to be entrepreneurs. And I first became acquainted with it in Barrow where the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation was sponsoring a group of kids to do things, make things and sell them. And I thought it was quite a unique idea. Well, Junior Achievement is all over the state of Alaska now. And they still continue to teach young people how to become entrepre­ neurs. And I don't know I ever got picked for that because I'm not a business entrepreneur. But they honor people who have had careers they think pr9vide models for young people. And but it was an interesting experience for me. I found out about it when I was in Sitka and then had to scurry around and get the information that they needed. And then went to the event in Anchorage. And, I met the other people who were being honored, some of whom I knew and some of them I didn't. But there was -- I think there were four or five of us who were honored that time. Distinguished Citizen of the Year for the Boy Scouts. 235

MS. WILLARD: The what? MS. SCHAIBLE: Distinguished Citizen of the Year for the Boy Scouts in Fairbanks, and Midnight Sun Council of the Boy Scouts. That was in 1986. And I think I mentioned that it was at that banquet that Governor Cooper announced my appointment as State Attorney General. And this is Friday. On Wednesday I attended the banquet honoring the first Native couple to be honored by the Boy Scouts. Anna and Richard Frank. Anna Frank is the first indige- nous Episcopal priest worldwide. And Richard is a long- time Native leader. And it's about time the Boy Scouts really honored somebody who lived the traditional Native life. I was very pleased to be part of that. And I had the opportunity to review all of the names of all the recipients in prior years. I was the fourth person to be selected. And that was 20 years ago, 1986. MS. WILLARD: And I understand the Girl Scouts have honored you as well? MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. The Girl Scouts have Women of Distinction, that's what it's called. And they usually have four a year. And I was honored, I think, in the second year that they did it. It's quite different from the Distinguished Citizen for the Boy Scouts because there's one person who does the interview and history, sort of family history of the individual being honored. And that's a woman that's married into the Binkley family here, long time tourist oriented. It was interesting for me to meet her for the first time. She wasn't married to Jim Binkley at that time, but because it's the only person I know who grew up in 236 Chevak, Alaska. Her parents were schoolteachers and she spent a lot of time in Chevak and she was in Quinhagak and Bethel. Maybe Aniak, I'm not sure about that, but she spent a lot of time in southwestern Alaska. Quite a well known radio personality here. She had a program on the radio interviewing pioneers. And 9:00 o'clock on one day of the week and I can't remember which day it was because I never got to listen to it. But she interviewed pioneers, and boy, every pioneer in Fairbanks was glued to the radio that morning. But she did all of the interviews and prepared all of the material for the Women of Distinction. MS. WILLARD: And I believe that you also have been honored by the University of Alaska Fairbanks, have you not? MS. SCHAIBLE: The what? MS. WILLARD: Honored by the University of Alaska Fairbanks. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, the university. Well, yes. It comes at the commencement of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, but it is an honor from the university. I was given an honorary doctor of law, yeah, they had the wrong color on my hood. They had education rather than law. MS. WILLARD: Blue instead of purple. MS. SCHAIBLE: Blue instead of purple is right. I couldn't believe it when they put the hood on me, I'm not in education. But in any event, yes. I was - - I can' t remember, 1995, maybe. 237 MS. WILLARD: 1991 is what I've got, but I could be wrong. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, well, could be '91. I don't remember. I honestly don't remember. MS. WILLARD: Okay. And I also understand that the University of Alaska Fairbanks Faculty Senate has honored you. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes, they did. MS. WILLARD: Tell us about that. MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, I didn't even know about it until I googled myself at one point. Because if I ever received that I must have been in a total daze because I don't remember it at all, but when I was trying to prepare for the Junior Achievement the only way I could get some of the information was to go in and see if anybody had anything. And there I found this resolution from the Faculty Senate which I didn't know about. But it did have a lot of valuable information in it. MS. WILLARD: And I assume gathered from your days when you were very active with the Alumni Association among other things, and the Regents. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes, well, I was active with the Alumni Association after my husband retired from the Board of Regents. I did not want to get involved in anything that would get him into difficulty as a Regent. But when he finished with the Board of Regents then I did take an active role. 238 The first thing I did was he was still on the Board of Regents in 1968, but I revived the local chapter of the Alumni Association, I revived their hamburger booth at the Tanana Valley State Fair. It had be.en flooded out in 1967. And it was the only fund raiser that our local chapter had, so I said okay, I will do it. And I rounded up people who had worked there and had some prior experience and I broke their arms and said we've got to get this going again. The university came in and helped. They sent crews from the university to rebuild the building, clean up everything, replace one of the stoves and re-wire the building, but they were kind enough to do that for the Alumni Association. So I ran that stupid hamburger booth for about three years and then said no, thank you, I have other things I need to do. But then I became active in the statewide after my husband left the Board of Regents. And I just believe that the university ought to be something about raising money. They had a very difficult man as the head of development at that time. He turned people off. Just literally turned them off. And I think it was 1974, '75, someplace in there that the university decided that they would create -- find the people to create the University Foundation. And I thought gee, that's what the alumni should be doing instead of a separate foundation. And I met with the Board of Foundation not long after it was organized. And I'll never forget, Elmer Rasmuson who was -- well, he was on the board, and I can't -- I don't know if he was chair or not, but he said something about Grace, I'll pretend that I am Stalin and 239 that you' re the Pope . And all I could say is where are your troops. He was really disappointed that the Alumni Association had never been a fund raiser because he thought that's where the funds ought to be coming from. But ..... MS. WILLARD: Perhaps we could explain who Elmer Rasmuson is? MS. SCHAIBLE: What? MS. WILLARD: Perhaps we could put a note in about Elmer. MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. Elmer Rasmuson, one of the most successful bankers in the history of the state or of the Territory. He was born in Yakutat. His parents were Swedish Covenant missionaries in Yakutat. And with the Gold Rush still going on to a certain extent, his father moved to Skagway and set up a bank in Skagway, the Bank of Skagway. And then he set up a bank in Wrangell, the Bank of Wrangell. Elmer grew up in Skagway. Went off to college. Harvard, and I think he went to Harvard Business School also. Became an accountant. Worked for -- gee, I can't remember which accounting firm it was with. One of the big national accounting firms. His father became ill so he came back to Alaska to run the bank which at that time was the Bank of Alaska, I think it was the Bank of Alaska. And they had branches in Anchorage. His father had moved to Anchorage. They had offices in Anchorage and Wrangell and Skagway. Elmer put together a statewide or a Territory-wide bank when he 240 took over after his father died. It became the largest bank in Alaska. Branches everywhere. Just amazing. Bought out a couple of more banks, in Sitka and Ketchikan. And when Alaska National Bank went belly up he ended up buying Barrow and Nome and Kotzebue. He just -- you know, it was a major bank. MS. WILLARD: Known as the National Bank of Alaska. MS. SCHAIBLE: The National Bank of Alaska. Elmer served longer on the Board of Regents of any person that I know of. Maybe -- well, Mayee Harriet Hess served longer, I'm not sure, but he served at a time when the university was growing, and was largely responsible for the development of the beginnings of a statewide system. But really the only major campus was here in Fairbanks. And as a result of his efforts the library is named for him. It's the largest library in Alaska. And it has a major polar section. It's -- I think it now outclasses Dartmouth which had a very large polar section in it, but a very generous man. The charitable giving just beyond belief. His mother had started the Rasmuson Foundation. Elmer, as he approached retire­ ment from actively running the bank, day to day running of the bank, turned it over to his son, Ed Rasmuson. He started devoting more time to the activities of the foundation. When they -- when he sold basically the National Bank of Alaska to Wells Fargo, he chunked a huge sum into the foundation. And on his death even more money went into the foundation. It is, of course, the largest foundation in Alaska. And it is professionally operated now. And it's just a great testament to a great man. 241 MS. WILLARD: I believe the Legislature also has honored you, and they've ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, yes, they've ..... MS. WILLARD: Or, has it not to be grammatically correct?

MS . SCHAIBLE: Well, when I retired as Attorney General they honored or thanked me for my service by resolution. And they do that all the time, so I ..... MS. WILLARD: Wasn't there a later resolution? Perhaps I'm wrong and I just had a date wrong. MS. SCHAIBLE: No, that's the only one I know of. MS. WILLARD: Okay. Can you think of any other activity that I've missed. MS. SCHAIBLE: Have we talked about the Foraker Group? MS. WILLARD: No, we haven't. As a matter of fact I had a note on that. Tell us about the Foraker Group. MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. The Foraker Group was started by Ed Rasmuson. The Rasmuson Foundation together with the Murdock Foundation which is a Pacific Northwest foundation, decided that something needed to be done to improve the efficiency and stability of nonprofits in Alaska. And so they created the Foraker Group which is an education institution for nonprofits. And training classes for boards of directors of nonprofits which change quite frequently, for the staff of nonprofits which change quite frequently. And to keep the momentum going of getting people to 242 think about the importance of what the nonprofits do and how they might become more efficient and how they might learn to do things that they hadn't done before such as fund raising. And the elements of fund raising are if you're on the board of a nonprofit you give until there's 100 percent giving. And nonprofits are beginning to celebrate this. And it was kind of interesting for the Nature Conservancy. The Nature Conservancy in Alaska for the first time in its history achieved 100 percent giving by its board. And it's something that I've always believed in. Ed was successful in luring away from the United Way of Anchorage its executive director, Dennis McMillian. And he, in turn, was able to lure really qualified people. With a very small staff they do a lot of work. In addition to providing all these training classes they have on tap consultants who provides services at lower than standard rates for the members of the Foraker Group. There are two parts to Foraker Group. One is the Gover­ nance Board which I served on for a number of years and, in January, I' 11 be having my last meeting. Then there is the Operations Board which consists of people in the active trenches of nonprofit work. And they advise the Governance Board which is the policy board on things that need to be done to assist nonprofits. And it's just a great arrangement. I'm very proud to have been asked to join them in the beginning. MS. WILLARD: I believe you also served as chair? 243 MS. SCHAIBLE: I served as chair. They have been trying to have chairs s~rve more than one year and I said no. I just -- that's more time commitment than I was prepared to make. And in anticipation of my going off the board I went back on the board of the Nature Conservancy where I had been for many years. MS. WILLARD: Perhaps you could explain where the name Foraker came from? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh. Foraker is the mountain almost next to Mount McKinley, or Denali as we prefer to call it in Alaska, but it's a quite high mountain. And it sits -- if you're from Fairbanks you see it on the right. And if you' re in Anchorage it sits on the left of the tallest mountain in North America. MS. WILLARD: I think it's the third tallest, isn't it? Third or fourth? MS. SCHAIBLE: I'm not sure. MS. WILLARD: After Logan. Logan, of course, comes right after McKinley. MS. SCHAIBLE: Logan is in Canada. MS. WILLARD: I'm talking about North America. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, North America. Yeah, it could be. It could be. MS. WILLARD: By the way, do you know what its Native name is? MS. SCHAIBLE: No. 244

MS. WILLARD: Sultana which means Denali 1 s wife, the big one 1 s wife. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh.

MS. WILLARD: Another Athabascan word.

MS. SCHAIBLE: Huh. No, I didn 1 t know that. I've always called it Foraker. MS. WILLARD: You've taught me a bunch so I gave you a little bit back.

MS. SCHAIBLE: But I don 1 t know who Foraker was.

MS. WILLARD: You know, I've read that and I don 1 t remember at this point. I think he was an explorer of some sort. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes, I should go look it up in the geographic section. But Foraker Group is continuing to expand. One of the things that we tried for -- well, spending a lot of money trying to arrange for health insurance for nonprofit staffs. And we spent a lot of money trying to train the State of Alaska on how they 1 re supposed to be running the regulatory part of this type of an arrangement. And they didn't get it. They just didn't get it. And it -- people spent a lot of time and a lot of money trying to get that to work and it turned out not to be feasible because the state regulatory system just couldn 1 t figure out how to do it. So I think that they'll probably try again more successfully next time. MS. WILLARD: Well, I've been saving what I consider a very fascinating topic not to last, but almost to last. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yeah. 245

MS. WILLARD: Tell us about polar bears. MS. SCHAIBLE: Polar bears. Well, I've always admired two animals, tigers and polar bears. Tigers for the most part live in rather warm places. I mean we have Siberian Tigers who don't live in warm places. But the tiger is so well adapted to their environment which is a constantly shrinking environment, but it's not my animal. I'm a northern person and I've always admired polar bears. Nanook is the symbol of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

My husband was a Regent so he admired polar bears, but he also wanted to kill them. And in the early years of our marriage when it was still legal to hunt polar bears he announced one day that he was going polar bear hunting. And I said oh, who are you going with? And he said with Joe Thibedeau. And I said well, Joe's walked away from every crash, I guess. And -- but I don't like the idea of him going polar bear hunting to begin with. And he said well, I think I'm going to go. I said, fine, you go and ·you'll come home to an empty house. He said, you're joking. And I said try me. He canceled his polar bear hunt. I just -- to me it was just such an unnecessary slaugh­ ter. And he began to see the wisdom of his not going. And the next thing I knew, this is several years later, we were walking down the street in Frankfurt in Germany my husband spotted a crystal polar bear in the window. Highly stylized, but it was a beautiful bear. He walked in the store and said to me I'm going to start collecting polar bear art. Oh, and you're going to start 246 with that one? Yes, buy it for me, so I bought it for him. And I said I'm buying it, but you carry it. It was a heavy piece of crystal. And so we brought it home. And he was serious. So, okay, that solves gift giving. And so I bought every porcelain polar bear I could find. Every crystal polar bear that I could find except one. And he took a look at the Steuben polar bear and said don't buy that, it looks like a pig. And so I didn't buy it. And -- but every time we were someplace I kept looking for polar bears. And I gave him a polar bear print and he said that print is going to look very nice behind the door. He said he couldn't hang that on the wall. And I had to agree with him, it looked like the polar bears were stuffed. And it was not a very good print. And then we really started looking at Fred Machetanz polar bears. And we were just about ..... MS. WILLARD: Before we go any further let's talk about Fred just a minute to make it clear who ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. Well, Fred Machetanz is one of Alaska's most famous artists dealing mostly with Southcentral Alaska and the Arctic. His uncle was Charlie Traeger, a well known trader at Unalakleet. And Fred came up as a young man to spend some time with his uncle and fell in love with Alaska. And later married Sarah and they lived just outside of Palmer ..... MS. WILLARD: Uh-hum .

MS. SCHAIBLE: . . . . on the high ridge. And he produced the most remarkable art, including some of the most 247 beautiful polar bears that had ever come including the one we are looking at in this office. MS. WILLARD: Yes. Go on. MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. But we were just on the edge of getting to buy a polar bear and my husband died. And I can't remember the person who was going to sell us a polar bear, but he canceled the whole thing. And I never got that polar bear. I do have six Machetanz originals, plus I have all of his offset lithographs. I did have all of his stone lithographs, except one, but the university has a complete set of that and so I gave them to my church and they sold them. But after his death, I just kept buying polar bear art. MS. WILLARD: You mean your husband's death ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes . MS. WILLARD: . . . . . in 1980? MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. MS. WILLARD: Okay. And so what happened as a result? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, I just -- I probably have the largest collection of polar bear art in the world. MS. WILLARD: Yes. And it comes from all over the world, does it not? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well ..... MS. WILLARD: Or at least all the northern ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: It's circumpolar. MS. WILLARD: Yes. 248

MS. SCHAIBLE: I have polar bears from Greenland. I have lots of polar bears from Canada. Lots of polar bears from Alaska. And I have all but two of the Royal Copenhagen porcelain polar bears. And I'm getting one of them this month and trying to figure out how I can get back to Copenhagen to get the one I'm missing. I don't think that there's any porcelain or crystal polar bear that I don't have. When I met Jim Houston, the man who started the Inuit art cooperatives in Canada, he was also a designer for Steuben. I said, Jim, when are you going to replace that pig-like polar bear that Steuben has. And he said well, they've been after me to do that and I think I will. Well, I waited several years and I happened to be in New York and I walked in to Steuben and I said has Jim Houston ever done his polar bears? And the woman said how did you know? I said I didn't, I'm asking you. And she said they' re coming out in June. And this was probably in April. And so she took my name, my address and she called me when they were released and I sent her a check and I got the new -­ two new ones. And then I went back later and bought an earlier one of his. The polar bear is sterling silver and it's on the Steuben, a large piece of crystal, just like an ice pressure ridge. And so I do have a very large collection. MS. WILLARD: Have you got any idea how many polar bears you have? 249 MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, no. Because I collect the prints. Most of the prints are from Canada, their Inuit artists. And you know, I've met some of the artists in Pangnirtung and Lake Harbor and Cape Dorset all on Baffin Island, but it's probably someplace between 700 and 1,000. MS. SCHAIBLE: Prints or sculptures as well? MS. WILLARD: Everything? MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes, yes. And that doesn't include toys. That doesn't include ornaments. I have five boxes, very large boxes of polar bear ornaments. And I have polar bear dishes. I have polar bear glasses. I have polar bear candlesticks. I have polar bear this, polar bear that and some of those aren't counted. MS. WILLARD: Sure. And of course, Cook Schumann has been the beneficiary ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: A loan. MS. WILLARD: ..... of the ability to enjoy a lot of this art. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. MS. WILLARD: What's going to happen to it, Grace? MS. SCHAIBLE: It's -- well, there's an ongoing conversation with the university. The fine arts only wants to have the pieces done by Alaskan or Canadian artists. And I'm not prepared to break up the collection. And so it's an ongoing conversation. I have had an inventory done of most of my art. It's not all. My collection is very substantial. Other artists' work I have lots of -- well, Nancy Stonington who was a former 250 Alaskan artist. Nancy and I have worked together so that the university will end up with a complete collection of her Alaskan art, together with a complete collection of all her flowers and plants. She's very well known for the flowers and plants. And, historically, a lot of the good things on Alaska, like all the churches, all of the Orthodox Churches, all of the canneries, so it's a major collection. And Nancy's pieces that are no longer available even on a secondary market, so that's going to the university and they want that. There's no doubt that's something they want, but the polar bear collection is still under discussion. And I don't know what I am going to do if they don't want the whole collection. MS. WILLARD: Hopefully it's going to end up as a collection .... MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. MS. WILLARD: ..... intact somewhere. MS. SCHAIBLE: Uh-hum. MS. WILLARD: For others to enjoy as well as you and Cook Schumann.

MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, my condo, the main entry way is two stories high. And they wanted art work. So a couple of the women went with me to my print files which are very large, stored in my garage, my three car garage. And we went through them and picked out prints, a large, huge collection of Nancy Stonington's flowers, and one triptych of hers. And a large selection of polar bears done by very famous wildlife artists including Machetanz and 251 Robert Bateman. And then a selection of -- well, mostly Kenajuak, the very famous Inuit artist. The first woman that Jim Houston was able to persuade to do art work, prints. And it's a woman I met one time when I was in Cape Dorset. And all -- and we had people come from the New Horizon Gallery and design what would be appropriate. And the owner of the New Horizon Gallery also went into the print files because she remembered a couple of prints that she thought would be better than what we had selected. And so they designed this display. The three walls of that two story entryway. One wall is all Nancy Stonington's flowers. One wall is a collection of polar bears. And one wall is -- it's a half a wall above the entry doors, but it's all Kenajuak, except one Pangnirtung print, so ..... MS. WILLARD: Great. MS. SCHAIBLE: And I used to loan art to the Chamber of Commerce. I loaned art to Sheldon Jackson. No one there remembers it was on loan. I gave a couple of pieces to the Chamber of Commerce, but I took back a couple of them, too, so -- but I'd loan art to the Chamber of Commerce and they'd turn them over to the Visitors Convention Bureau and I'd sort of lose track of where it went. MS. WILLARD: You mentioned, other than the polar bears which we -and the Stonington collection, what other collections do you have? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, I still have a lot of Claire Fejes' pieces. I've given most of them to the museum, but I kept 252 pieces that were specifically dedicated to my husband and myself, some early prints of hers that are very rare now. And then you name an Alaskan artist and I probably have a piece of his or her work. I have quite a few Rie Munoz. MS. WILLARD: Of what? MS. SCHAIBLE: Rie Munoz. And then when I moved to my new condo and finally had space for it, I commissioned some pieces by Alaskan artists. Kesler Woodward, a professor of art at UAF, lived up the river from me and he'd been painting the river scenes and so I commissioned one, moved down the river a little bit where I'm looking at it and did that. I've bought a couple of his smaller pieces when he was artist in residence, the first person to be artist in residence at Denali National Park. David Mollett. I've always admired one of the pieces he did for a poster for KUAC many years ago. I asked him if he would mind going out to Richardson Bluffs and do another piece on the Tanana River, the Alaska Range in the background, which he did. I bought a piece of art from a young woman who was a student at the university. I don't remember her first name, I think it's Susan, but it's Farnham, her last name is Farnham. Just a fabulous piece. I have a representative piece I think of every well known Alaskan artist. MS. WILLARD: You mentioned one of my all time favorites. I'll never be able to afford him but do you have a Sidney Laurence? 253 MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, no. No. I'm not -- I'm really not into oils until I saw things of Kes Woodward's. And he changed my mind about it. My husband had a substantial collection of Sidney Laurence and they were all destroyed by the fire that killed his first wife. MS. WILLARD: Oh.

MS. SCHAIBLE: And the same with a number of Zieglers. Ziegler used to have an apartment in the same building that my husband and his first wife lived in. And they were good friends. And he had quite a few Zieglers. MS. WILLARD: What a tragedy all the way around. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. He had Lamberts, Ted Lamberts' paintings and some of the things that Ted and his wife had dedicated to my husband. Who else? Oh, all those have gone to the museum. The Zieglers, Kes Woodward did a show of -- curated a show at the Anchorage Museum on Sidney Laurence and then another one on Ziegler. And he used a couple of the paintings that I've given to the university for the Ziegler show. Let's see, what else do I have? I just have a lot. I have an original Barbara Lavalle polar bear. The only one she's ever done really. It's a swimming polar bear. Just about the only thing of Barbara LaValle's I have. She doesn't amuse me the way Rie Munoz does so .... MS. WILLARD: Yes, I agree. MS. SCHAIBLE: I have a larger collection of Rie Munoz. I've always been fascinated with Rie Munoz. She did the 254 Chilkat Dancers, you know, that big mural that used to be in the airport in Seattle, of the Chilkat Dancers. MS. WILLARD: Maybe you could explain a bit about Rie .... MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. MS. WILLARD: ..... because her art is special. MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. She's a very whimsical artist, but also she captures the spirit of what's going on. She came to Alaska as a tourist, decided she liked Juneau, and I think she took the ship up to Skagway and came back to Juneau and didn't go back south. She got a job, I think, working for the Juneau Independent and she started producing art. And I never paid much attention to it, but people that I knew were buying it like crazy. And so I started looking at it more carefully. Then I think she and her husband went out to -- oh, what is that island? King Island. And they were teaching at King Island and she did art work there. And then they came back to Southeastern and her husband was, I think, on Prince of Wales Island someplace, and then they were divorced. And she ended up back in Juneau and pretty much devoting her full time to art. · She had a place out at Tenakee Springs on Chichagof Island and just did some very wonderful painting there. Rie went to France and started the tapestries in France, but made two or three trips at different times to do different pieces in France. And she's just a fabulous artist. I have a lot of her things -- or had a lot more, but over the years I decided I 255 couldn't collect everything of hers. Between Nancy Stonington and Rie Munoz, I would have required a gallery of my own. MS. WILLARD: I can believe that. MS. SCHAIBLE: They're both very prolific artists, but I still have a lot of things. My nephew, my youngest nephew, my sister's youngest son, thinks the world of her work. And I get a call from my sister who asked, do you have Staring? I said oh, yeah, I don't know, let me check. Couldn't find it. Then remembered it was on loan. But it was one that her son's wife really wanted. And so she called one of her sources in Oregon and found it, then I found it, much too late, but still. But when Margaret and Cliff were in Fairbanks one time we went to the print files and they picked out everything that they wanted at that point. MS. WILLARD: Well, it's going to be a remarkable gift wherever all of this goes. Why don't we take a brief break. (Off record) (On record) MS. WILLARD: We're back on record as they say this business. Grace, what do you conceive or believe to be your proudest accomplishments? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, I don't -- I can't think of anything that is, you know, my proudest accomplishment. I think that I was a good lawyer. I think I represented my clients exceedingly well. I hated litigation and spent almost my entire career as an attorney avoiding litigation, believing that if you 256 prepare documents properly you're avoiding it. And that was my aim as an attorney. As for my non-working life, I think that the variety of things that I have done is -- I can't say it's an accomplishment, but it's been very satisfying for me. One of the things is reading, raising and showing dogs. I just -- people forget that that's what I did for a number of years and I loved it. I loved traveling. I enjoy seeing new places. I enjoy going to places I've been to before, particularly to watch polar bears. MS. WILLARD: Particularly? MS. SCHAIBLE: To watch polar bears. MS. WILLARD: Yes. MS. SCHAIBLE: I've done that more than I have anything else. I've done it in the Canadian Arctic. I've watched polar bears in Alaska, of course, but done it more in the Canadian Arctic, and then more recently the last 15 years principally in Svalbard. I go every summer, except the summer of 2006, and I join the ship and sail around. The lifelong friendships that I've had have been just a real joy for me. I don' t keep in touch with too many people anymore, too many of them have died and gone away, but those I do keep in touch with are very dear friends. So I can't think of anything that is a major accomplish- ment. I just a lot of little things that I've enjoyed doing. And to me it's as important to have fun doing what I do as it is to accomplish something. 257 MS. WILLARD: Do you look back and see anything that you thought of at the time as being particularly challenging? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, working with the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was a big challenge. The Congress had devised something that no one knew how it was going to work. And the challenges of interpreting that Act and, quite frankly, working with accountants who had even less guidelines than attorneys had, but that one was a real challenge in the beginning. And then you get comfortable with it and just sort of common sense leads you to the right decisions. But to have help. The nice thing is that there were people who were real experts in Indian law and true, Indian law was not as applicable to the Native Claims Settlement Act corporations, but it still gives you an idea of what had happened before. And I found that very useful, but that was .... You know, passing the bar was a big challenge. MS. WILLARD: For all of us who took the old home grown variety. You've had a very long, illustrious career in our profession. Is there any kind of trend that you've noted develop­ ing throughout that time? MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, yes. MS. WILLARD: Tell us about that. MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. Well, to me one of the things that took me away from the practice of law was the fact that it was treated as no longer a profession, but it became a business. That bottom line made a huge difference in the way I felt about practicing law. Where you ·- - everybody was judged on billing 258 hours. They were not judged on client satisfaction. And that's what practice of law was to me was client satisfaction, not a bottom line. And I wanted to quit and I did because I could no longer profess to be a lawyer. So that was the -- that to me was a huge change. And then the technologies that became applicable to the practice of law. Now I think those were just marvelous things. I lived through, I think, every kind of technical advance and the process. We went from mechanical typewriters to electric typewrit­ ers. Big advantage. Then we went to MTSTs. Then we went to this, we went to that. We went finally to PCs. And that made a lot of sense in the practice of law, instead of having to dictate to somebody to do the work you could do it yourself. And, you know, I had always done that because I could type faster than most of the secretaries. But I think the technological uses in the practice of law were just a remarkable change. And that was one I applaud. The other one I didn't applaud. MS. WILLARD: What about, if you're noticed, the interaction among members of the bar over the last, since you started from ..... MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, collegiality is one thing that has disappeared. I always remember Bob Parrish saying my word is my bond but get it in writing. And he was joking because his word was his bond. And that's the way I felt about all of the practi- 259 tioners that I knew. Now I don't even know if they understand when you say that my word is my bond. And the collegiality and the civility has also disap­ peared. I don't care what the rules are. You don't need rules to be decent in the practice of law. And it just isn't. It isn't there, they're the wrong rules. And that was one thing, collegial­ ity was one thing that Steve Cooper wanted me to talk about because it was something that he needed with a young cabinet. And I talked about collegiality until I thought everybody was going to throw up, but it was important because they just didn't understand what it meant to work together and how important it was. Some of the worst times I had as Attorney General was simply because commissioners were battling -- I've got to do this. I've got to be .... It was power struggles that were so silly that I just -- I can still talk about collegiality to most people and I don't think they'd understand what I was talking about. MS. WILLARD: If you were to address a group of young women about to embark upon the practice of law, what advice would you give them? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, it depends upon what they want to do with the law. Because going to law school is just a wonderful door opener to a lot of things. And you don't have to practice law after you go to law school because there are so many other things that you can do. And so I guess I would want to know what they were-interested in doing. If ..... 260 MS. WILLARD: Well, let's assume that they're about to start practicing law. They've taken their degrees, they've passed the bar and they're about to start. MS. SCHAIBLE: They're about to start? MS. WILLARD: They're about to spread those wings. MS. SCHAIBLE: Oh, okay. Well, I think the number one rule is what goes around comes around. And if you want to be treated decently you've got to practice it yourself. And other than that I can't think of anything that -- I mean the rules of court are there for you to follow. And the canons are there for you to follow, but you know, what -- you've just got to be is a decent human being and that's -- because, if you're not, what goes around comes around. And I can't think of other better advice than that. MS. WILLARD: We've covered a lot of years and a lot of ground personally and professionally. Can you think of anything we've omitted addressing?

MS. SCHAIBLE: We haven't talked about the museum. MS. WILLARD: Oh, that's right. I was going to go from the polar bears to the museum. Talk about the museum. MS. SCHAIBLE: Okay. Well, the museum, of course, I've seen the museum grow from one small part of the third floor of the Eielson Building to what used to be the gymnasium to a brand new museum on the West Ridge to a now newly expanded museum on the West Ridge. And always been a part of it. 261 The first capital campaign that the University of Alaska Fairbanks had which was the first capital campaign run to raise private funds. Joe Usibelli who was co-chair with me, we decided that the money that we brought to the table in that campaign would be designated for construction of the expanded museum. When the time came for it to have its own capital campaign for the expan­ sion, Joe Usibelli headed it. And he tried to recruit me and I said sorry, I just -- with my schedule I can't do it. And so he recruited Richard Wein and the two of them were very successful in raising private dollars for the museum. I continued to put money in, made a pledge for additional money for the expansion. And fortunately the foundation was willing to treat that money -- since it was construction was off in the future, they treated that money as endowments so that it earned money. And as the campaign was just beginning to go public, the university wanted to buy from the foundation -- or wanted to acquire from the foundation the -- my home which I had given to them. And they -- I had a restriction in there that the property could not be transferred from the foundation to the university without payment of the fair market value, and that the payment would be designated for the expansion of the museum. The university tried to get me to waive that and I said no. They finally did buy it and paid the -- you know, just transferred money from one pocket to another, but that allowed my contribution to the museum to be $1,000,000. MS. WILLARD: Fabulous. 262 MS. SCHAIBLE: And over the years I have given art work. The first major piece of art work was an original painting of a polar bear by Robert Bateman, a great Canadian artist, conservationist and wonderful person. But it was Polar Bear Profile. Then various pieces of art. I gave all of Diana Tillion's art work. Quite a bit of Dale De Armond' s art work. All but one water color of Claire Fejes' and, of course, all of the oils. Then a very large Regat bronze, I gave to them. And I gave a second bronze, but that one was designated to be on loan to the university athletic department. And it was Shelter Cove which is on a trolley so that they can bring it out for games at the Patty Center, so -- yes, I've given a lot of art.

I serve now on the Museum Advisory Council. We are still trying to get additional support for the museum. As a result of the gifts that I made, I had a naming opportunity and I chose one of the labs. It's basically the tissue lab which is, you know, preserved, frozen tissue lab. And it covers most of the wildlife tissues of Alaska. But it's an important research thing. I spent a lot of time, people who didn't 1 ike the expansion program of the museum because they thought it was too unusual, they thought we ought to have a box. And they can see problems with the design. And I -- for those people I would talk about who cares. The museum is finally getting a place where their research department isn't crowded. Where the people who are doing 263 major research work have places to work. Where the people who design exhibits in the museum have places to work. The research aspect of the museum makes a big difference to me. And people forget about it. It's out of sight, out of mind. And I have to keep reminding people that major research is going on in that museum day by day. I'm very proud of the museum. I love the new galleries. I commissioned for the Rose Berry Gallery a Tlingit robe of the raven's tail style done by Teri Rofkar. And it's on display now. It's a beautiful piece. And it is a design -- the raven's tail design is older than the Chilkat. And it was a lost art. MS. WILLARD: What was it? MS. SCHAIBLE: It was a lost art until a woman, a non-Native, spent time in the museums in Russia figuring out exactly how raven's tail was done. It's a different weaving, unique. And then started teaching· it. And both Teri Rofkar and her mother, Marie Laws were among the first people to do it. And Teri Rofkar, when this was commissioned, said she wanted to do an ice walker, polar bear, because I was the one who had commissioned the piece. And she did. And instead of having the raven's tail black and white, she had the tails were all the different shades of a polar bear. And the bear track which is a brown bear track, she put pale blue thread through it to show the difference. And so it's quite a unique piece. As you walk into the Rose Berry Gallery it's right there. 264 But the museum is something that I'm very, very fond of. Very proud of. In the olden days Ivan Skarland was the man who was running the museum and, you know he didn't pretend to know everything about what was going on, but he thought it was important that the university keep collecting for the museum. Dr. Bunnell dispatched Otto Geist to Saint Lawrence Island with money to buy things and there's been enough continuity within the university that people care about preserving the history. MS. WILLARD: Have I forgotten anything else that you can think of, or is there anything else you'd like to tell us for this oral history? MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, I have known all the presidents of the university except one. I was on his search committee and I selected him. He came, he saw and he left in four months. I've never been asked to serve on another presidential search. But he was misled by the people who were interviewing him on behalf of the university. And when he got here and found out that he had been misled as to the financial status of the university he said, I can't deal with it. I've already done something like this. Gone into a place to dig its way out and he said no, I can't do it again. And of course, he came, I think he came in October September, late September. MS. WILLARD: Do you remember what year? MS. SCHAIBLE: No, I don't remember what year it was. And I think he left in December. But, in any event, I felt very badly because he was such a well qualified person. And I 265 would have loved to have seen him succeed, but I didn't get a chance to do any of the interviews. And the university administra­ tion people were just not forthcoming. They lied about the financial condition of the university. And he left. But I didn't ever meet him personally. I was just on his selection committee. But I've known all the presidents. MS. WILLARD: Yes, that's quite an accomplishment. MS. SCHAIBLE: And Terris Moore who was the second president I worked for, for almost a year, and I really didn't like him as a president, but I admired him as a person. He was just tremendously accomplished. And knowing him created a lot of interesting friendships over the years. I'd speak with people and they'd say you know Terris Moore? MS. WILLARD: Looking back is there anything that you haven't done that you really wanted to do? MS. SCHAIBLE: Yes. I had a very good friend from Juneau days who lived in Afghanistan ..... MS. WILLARD: Lived? MS. SCHAIBLE: Lived in Afghanistan for many years. And she kept asking for me to come visit. And my husband and I

talked about it. We talked about it, but we never went. He had good friends, physicians friends in Iran. And they would beg to have us come visit. And we'd talk about it and we'd talk about it and we never went. And pretty soon it became impossible. And even though it remained on the list of things that we wanted to do 266 together, I crossed them off the list because I wasn't going to do them by myself. I'm sorry that he never got to Antarctica because he really wanted to do that. But we did get to China, not the in-depth trip that I would have wanted, but we did it-in 1979 which was the second year that China was open. MS. WILLARD: Uh-hum. MS. SCHAIBLE: And it was still very primitive, but it was fun. But I continue to travel so ..... MS. WILLARD: Is there anything else you'd like to put on the record?

MS. SCHAIBLE: No, I can't think of anything. I feel like I've just ..... MS. WILLARD: Well, Grace, I have to tell you it's really been an honor and a privilege for me to have participated in this particular project for the ABA Commission on Women. I was delighted when they asked me. I was even more delighted when they accepted a suggestion that you be the interviewee. And it most certainly has exceeded my wildest expectations. You've not only given us a great story of your life which is a remarkable one, but it is peopled with some of the most marvelous Alaskan characters, both famous and infamous. And I really do thank you for taking the time to do this for us. MS. SCHAIBLE: Well, I feel very honored to have been selected so -- and thank you for that. I just hope that it's 267 of some use to somebody sometime. And, if it's not, I've enjoyed it. MS. WILLARD: Great. At this point we'll go off record.

(END OF PROCEEDINGS)