"A Sketch of the Life of John A. Steinbeck, the Dickson Family and the Jewish Mission in Palestine Asia," approximately 30pp, [233] c. 1917

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A Sketch of the life of John Adolph Steinbeck, the Dickson family, and the Jewish mission in Palisline Asia

Going westward from Dusseldorf, on the Rhine, one travels for a few miles over a level plain which in summer is covered with fields of buckwheat. In summer when in bloom it is musical with the hum of bees making honey. The farmer takes the hives and wheels them to the fields for the bees to fill with honey from the sweet blossoms. Beyond this plains the country is rolling and studded with well culturated farms. One of these farms was around a hundred years ago by a family named Grosssteinbeck.

When the father died, his son Peter inherited the farm. Peter married and had eleven children, six died in infancy. In 1835, his wife died leaving five small children. His sister took the six-month baby home after the funeral but the father could not bear to be separated from his little one.

So the next morning before breakfast he went and brought her home and gave her into the care of Katherine his twelve year old daughter. Two sons Frederick Wilhelm and Peter were older than Katherine. John Adolph was two years old.

For several years the father and children got along together, but the home showed the need of a mother’s care. So the father married a thrifty woman who with a vigorous hand straightened up the home. Little John was out picking up apples when he first saw the new mother coming with his father. "Here is your new mother” said his father. "Call her mother.” But John never could call her mother and regarded her a stepmother, she treating the children like a typical stepmother.