Stanford receives author's effects

The gifts included the author's Nobel medal and letters.
By LISA M. KRIEGER
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Stanford University last week was given the Nobel Prize gold medallion awarded in 1962 to writer John Steinbeck, California's only native son to win the prize for literature.
Stored for years in a safe-deposit box in New York City, the medallion is a gift by his stepdaughter from the estate of Elaine Steinbeck, the author's third wife, who died in 2003. Steinbeck died in 1968.
The university also received a cache of personal letters from Elaine to her husband and Steinbeck's canceled check for 257,219 Swedish kronen in Nobel prize money.
The gifts arrived this week, hand-carried from New York to California by a university courier.
"The pieces are a capstone to the already important collection of Steinbeck's work. We are delighted to have them," said Provost John Etchemendy, who accepted the memorabilia from representatives of Merrill Lynch, the estate's financial adviser, in a simple campus ceremony Friday. Stepdaughter Waverly Scott Kaffaga was too ill to attend.
The new materials are available for research by students, faculty and members of the public, said Roberto G. Trujillo, head of the department of special collections at Stanford University Libraries.
Connection to Stanford
Steinbeck's writings continue to resonate with Stanford students more than 65 years after publication of his award-winning "The Grapes of Wrath," which documents the struggles of Dust Bowl farmworkers. Stanford's English Department will offer a new undergraduate course on Steinbeck later this year.
Steinbeck's on-campus celebrity would have amused the author, who spent only a patchwork of quarters in the classroom and received less-than-stellar grades.
Although he established many important connections at Stanford that later helped his writing career, he left campus without graduating.
At the time of his death, only two Steinbeck letters were in Stanford's collection.
But Elaine Steinbeck was supportive of the university's efforts to document his life and work. Before her death, she donated material in Steinbeck's personal files, including letters he received upon winning the Nobel Prize from such people as Princess Grace, John F. Kennedy and Carl Sandburg.
She reportedly said that Steinbeck wanted the Nobel medallion to go to Stanford.
XLisa M. Kreiger writes for the San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.)