Grace Fern Heck Faust was born in 1905. In the fall of 1924, she enrolled in Ohio State University where she became a member of Zeta Tau Alpha. She earned a bachelor’s degree in 1928, one of two women who graduated with a law major. Faust was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
She graduated summa cum laude from the Ohio State University College of Law with a Juris Doctor in 1930. Graduating in the top ten percent of her class made her a member of the Order of the Coif.
When she was passed over for a job at a Cleveland law firm in favor of a man, she spent a year as a researcher for the Wickersham Commission at Yale University as well as doing other research work.
She moved back to Urbana, Ohio, and started a private practice, making her the youngest attorney in the county. Then she decided to run for elected office in Champaign County and put in miles visiting the county’s residents knocking on doors and talking to the electorate. She won her bid to be Prosecuting Attorney and was the first woman in Ohio to win that position.
Dayton Herald, August 11, 1937
Telegraph-Forum (Bucyrus, Ohio), July 2, 1935
During World War II, she was employed by a law firm in Springfield, but when the male lawyers returned from war service she found herself without a job. She began another law practice in Springfield and served as secretary of the Clark County Bar Association from 1945-1956.
In 1951, after the death of the sitting judge, Faust was endorsed as Champaign County’s probate judge but she declined. Three years later, she was elected as the county’s municipal judge. It came with a $3,000 per year salary which was meager, even for the time. She resigned from the position in 1958 and returned to private practice. She found time to serve on the board of the Magnetic Springs Foundation, a rehabilitation facility in Magnetic Springs, Ohio. In 1960, she was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.
She served as president of the Ohio State University College of Law Alumni Association. Faust was honored with the Alumni Centennial Award in 1970 and the Distinguished Service Award in 1971, both from Ohio State University. She married Leo Faust in 1977. He, too, was an attorney.
In 1990, she was the first woman to receive the Ohio State University’s Distinguished Alumni Award. Four years later, she died at the age of 88.
Grace Heck’s 1930s red and white day dress now in the Ohio State University Textiles collection (Photo courtesy of The Ohio State University)
