Grace Berg Schaible

Grace Berg Schaible was the first female state's attorney general. She served as Alaska's attorney general from 1987 to 1989.

Background

Grace L. Berg was the product of immigrant parents. Her father, Hans A. Berg, was from Otteren (near Davik), Nordfjord, Norway. Her mother, Mandis, hailed from a village near Lindesberg, Sweden. Both arrived in the United States separately in 1910. When her mother was seven month pregnant, she left the Alaska Territory and moved to Tacoma, Washington, where Berg was born on November 28, 1925. While still a babe in arms, she returned with her mother to Alaska. Although her parents were conservative Republicans, she would be a lifelong Democrat.

She attended public schools in Juneau and graduated from high school in May 1943. Rather than immediately enroll in college, she took time off to work. She would alternate between work and academic pursuits until she finished her studies at Yale Law School in January 1959.

Berg married the widowed Arthur Schaible on Christmas Day, 1958 at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City. He was a prominent physician in Alaska and head of the Alaska Native Health Services Hospital in Tanana.