Lasting Memories

Sheila Spaeth
Feb. 8, 1906-March 30, 2007
Stanford, California

Sheila Spaeth, 101, a longtime member of the Stanford community, died March 30.

She was the wife and partner of the late Dean Carl B. Spaeth of Stanford Law School. For 60 years she had been widely respected on campus for her service as doyenne of the law school and support of cultural activities. She was a founding member and second president of the Community Committee for International Students and served on the boards of the Committee for Art and the Music Guild.

She was born Feb. 8, 1906, in England at Streatham, outside of London. As a girl, she loved spending summers in Scotland at Ballater, her Scottish father's family home, where she had childhood memories of being taken to see the king and queen arrive at the train station. As a young woman she modeled sportswear for a London department store before moving into the theater, where she bought the material for costumes she designed. She was introduced to Carl Spaeth by her Scottish uncle and aunt, who knew him as a Rhodes Scholar studying at Oxford. They were married in 1931 and moved back to the United States in 1932.

After appointments at Northwestern and Yale Law Schools, the young couple moved to Washington D.C. in the early 1940s with two small children. Her husband worked with Nelson Rockefeller and once helped the Rockefellers find a home in the Washington Palisades. The Spaeth family spent two years in Uruguay during World War II, where Carl served on an anti-Nazi international committee.

She moved west to Stanford in 1946 when her husband became dean of the law school. She soon became active in university activities, helping to organize campus groups including the Daiquiri Girls, a book club and a bridge club. The Spaeths were active in politics. Family photographs show her with Eleanor Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson, Jimmy Carter, Sandra Day O'Connor, Tom Campbell, Byron Sher and others.

"Sheila was a great lady," said longtime friend and emeritus law professor John Merryman. "She had real style, real class. I was lucky to know her."

She is survived by her son, Grant Spaeth of Los Altos; her daughter, Laurie Spaeth of Stanford; two grandchildren and other family in England.