What a surprise to discover that the Thiel family in South Africa share part of their history with the ancestors of the well-known American author John Ernst Steinbeck (1902-1968). This winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature has been called “a giant of American Letters” with titles such as The Grapes of Wrath, for which he received the Pulitzer prize, East of Eden, Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row amongst his notable works.
John Ernst Steinbeck (1902-1968)
This shared history began when my great-grandfather, Gustav Thiel (1825-1907) married Maria Katharina Groβsteinbeck in Neukirchen, Germany in January 1849. In October 1849 the couple left for Palestine in a company of 10 people including her unmarried brothers Friedrich Wilhelm Groβsteinbeck (1821-1858) and Johann Adolf Groβsteinbeck (1832-1913). They investigated emigration to Palestine and decided to proceed when Gustav found it difficult to find work. Gustav was only 24 and his pregnant wife 23 when they departed from Wuppertal on 29 October 1849. After an arduous journey of three months across Europe and the Mediterranean, they arrived in Jaffa. Their first child Maria Christina Thiel was born in Latrun one day before they would have made the final day’s trip to Jerusalem. The couple had to stay behind in Latrun while the rest proceeded. They arrived in Jerusalem five days later on 8 February 1850.
The following twelve years were difficult for the Groβsteinbeck siblings. Maria Katharina had eight children during this period. Only the three eldest of her nine children survived beyond childhood – Maria Christina, Gustav and Samuel Gustav. The other six died during infancy. Maria Katharina herself died during an outbreak of typhoid fever in September 1862 which also caused the death of two of her children in October of the same year.
The Thiel family in 1860.
* This photograph was copied between pages 80 and 81 in Jakob Eisler’s book Deutsche Kolonisten im Heiligen Landt.
Maria Katharina’s brothers, Friedrich Wilhelm Groβsteinbeck and Johann Adolf Groβsteinbeck, married Dickson sisters, Mary (1833-1867) and Almira (1828- 1923). The sisters belonged to a group of American Baptists who arrived in Palestine in 1854. Their stay in Palestine however came to an abrupt and disastrous end when a group of men broke into the home where Friedrich and his wife were staying with her parents in the vicinity of Jaffa. They killed Friedrich and raped his wife and her mother. The assault which took place in January 1858 received international attention and the American consul-general came over to Jaffa from Alexandria to deal with the matter. After the incident Johann Groβsteinbeck and his wife Almira left Jaffa in June 1858 with the Dickson families to the United States where he changed his name to Johann Steinbeck. They chose to live in Florida where their third son, John Ernst Steinbeck, was born. The family eventually settled in California, where John Ernst married. In 1902 his wife gave birth to John Steinbeck, who was destined to become the famous American author who received the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature.
During his lifetime John Steinbeck associated with his maternal grandparents and had little contact with his German roots. After he passed away, however, various publications on his life referred to his grandfather’s time in Palestine and the Groβsteinbeck family who still lived in Germany. Probably the most useful for those of us interested in the history of the Thiel family is a book written by Jakob Eisler called Deutsche Kolonisten im Heiligen Landt, published in 2001. This book includes the transscriptions of 69 complete letters Eisler found with the family’s descendants in Germany. Gustav Thiel, his second wife Maria, and the two eldest children of his first wife, Maria and Gustav, wrote half of the letters (34) that Eisler reproduced in this publication.