This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/1/2025
John Steinbeck typed letter signed, dated December 1958 on his personal letterhead. Steinbeck writes to his typist Mary Morgan, with whom he had a close relationship, gifting her a cross made of wood that has a rich family history. In telling her the story of the wood from which the cross is made, Steinbeck also shares the stories of his great grandfather and grandfather, both of whom lived in Palestine-Israel. Letter reads in full,
''In 1850, as I may have told you often, my great grandfather Dickson moved his whole family from Leominster, Massachusetts to Palestine his purpose being to convert the Jews to Christianity. He was a hard-bitten Yankee, Perhaps he thought that Jesus had used wrong methods or had come along at a wrong time and with all respect, Dickson was not one to accept Christ's failure as final.
My grandfather Steinbeck was in the Holy Land for quite a different reason. He had ducked the Army of the King of Prussia, in which all of his brothers but one had been killed. The Junker spirit was not in him. He had dropped his von and his two-penny title and was become a cabinet maker and a good one. In Palestine he met and married young Almira Dickson, and of that accident of time and place - I am one of the less respectable results.
One night there was a great thunder storm over Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives was struck by lightning.
In the morning my grandfather climbed the hill and found one of the ancient olive trees riven by lightning. By his account the tree was well over two thousand years old and because of his trade, he knew his wood. He carried off a piece of it.
In our family it has been customary for us to make little crosses of this wood for our children and for certain few others. I still have a few fragments, as hard and brittle as coal.
And so I have made this little cross for you. The olive is strange to work. It takes its own form and cannot be forced. I have only waxed the wood to preserve it and have used no polishing agent but my fingers. You will find that it takes kindly to your touch and that it will grow in richness as you handle it. Sometimes it seems to feel like living tissue.
I don't know what you think or feel about symbols or talismans, but of one thing you can be sure. If there was indeed an Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane and a Betrayal - the tree from which the cross was made was there.'' Steinbeck ends with a handwritten note of affection, ''with love / John''.
Single page measures 8.5'' x 11''. Folds, overall near fine.