Schaelchlin, Patricia A.

Biography / Administrative History

Patricia Ann McKeown Schaelchlin was born in Flint, Michigan on July 7, 1924. Through her writings and work with the Save Our Heritage Organisation (SOHO), the La Jolla Historical Society, the San Diego Historic Site Board, and Friends of the La Jolla Library, Schaelchlin helped preserve the cultural and architectural history of La Jolla and San Diego.

Schaelchlin moved from Michigan to San Diego in 1959. After having 3 children, Mrs. Schaelchlin decided to go back to school, enrolling at San Diego State University where she attained both bachelors and masters degrees in anthropology. By the early 1970s she had become a member of the Save Our Heritage Organisation (SOHO), with whom she would help create Heritage Park (a San Diego County landmark). Preserving the history of the community she loved became her passion. She successfully convinced the Port Commission to make the San Diego Rowing Club a city landmark. As a writer, Schaechlin contributed articles to the former La Jolla Report and wrote a monthly column on San Diego history in, San Diego Home/Garden.

It is Schaelchlin's passion for history, and for her adopted home town, that led her to write about La Jolla and its famous inhabitants. Her master's thesis was an interpretation of famous La Jollan, Anson Peaslee Mill's diary. Her work with historical societies and similar organizations led her to write published works about historical landmarks like the San Diego Rowing Club. Schaelchlin spent fifteen years researching Ellen Browning Scripps and her life in La Jolla, and decided around 1990 to extend that research to the rest of the family beginning with James Mogg Scripps. Schaelchlin's well researched writings are labors of love that provide detailed insight not only into the history of San Diego/ La Jolla, but into the lives that helped shape the American cultural landscape.

Along with Newspaper barons: a biography of the Scripps family (Kales Press, 2003), Schaelchlin wrote, The little clubhouse on Steamship Wharf: San Diego Rowing Club, 1888-1983 (Rand Editions, 1984), and La Jolla: the story of a community, 1887-1987 (Rand Editions, 1988).