Secretary
Mentored since childhood to advocate for the most vulnerable, Laura’s parents insisted her special needs sister be in the regular classroom with supports; hired people with disabilities and/or suffered discrimination at their business in Ames, Iowa; and raised her Lutheran where love, justice, care, and compassion for the most vulnerable was deeply instilled.
She and her husband, Larry, attended the University of Oslo and graduated from Augustana Lutheran College in 1969. While Larry attended Seminary, Laura taught preschool to deaf children with multiple disabilities in Minneapolis, developing her own successful method of teaching them. Several had minimal brain dysfunction (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome). They adopted 3 children, had one, have 14 grandchildren, and 4 great grandchildren!
Larry’s first pastorate in the I.upiat Village of Brevig Mission defined their future together. Unknown to them, two of their adopted children were born with Fetal Alcohol Disorder (FASD) and co-occurring disorders. When Tanya’s schizoaffective disorder emerged in 1987, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America major medical did not cover mental illness. Laura and her husband led a successful nationwide lobbying campaign to change the Church’s policy on brain disorders for all. Thus began their passionate advocacy for those with mental illness, FASD and other brain disorders and their families.
Laura served on The Lutheran Network on Mental Illness/Brain Disorders developing materials nationally distributed on ministering to those in the “shadow of our steeples.” She also serves on the Alaska Mental Health Board and the CBJ Social Services Advisory Board and has been involved with (JAMI) JAMHI since 1990 and on the Board since 1997.
Her goal is to bring FASD informed services and a diagnostic team to JAMHI. She is a FASD Parent Navigator with 51 years of lived experience raising 2 children and 1 grandchild with FASD and co-occurring disorders. These, her delightful gifts from God, have challenged her in unimaginable ways! Their daughter Tanya, who died in 2018 as a result of her brain disabilities and chronic homelessness, taught Laura and her husband immeasurably. Larry, whose mission was to bring compassion, justice, and love to the most vulnerable, died in 2020. Their legacies inspire Laura.
Laura is a bead artist, who also loves to travel, learn, write, solve puzzles of all kinds, do Norwegian needlework, study history and theology, and gaze out her window overlooking Auke Bay. She is writing a book about their life with FASD entitled Confused Seas. She can be really silly, mischievous, and enjoys imitating animal sounds!