Liza was, Steinbeck wrote, "a little bog-trotting" woman who, "I am told, put out milk for the leprechauns in the hills behind King City, California, and when a groundling neighbor suggested the cats drank it, gave the neighbor a look that burned off his nose." Liza stayed on the ranch with Tom for four years after Samuel died; after Tom's suicide in 1912, she moved to Pacific Grove, where she lived the remainder of her life, dying in 1918 during a flu epidemic.

Photo Credit:The Steinbeck House / Valley Guild  

• Grandfather Sam Hamilton
• Mother Olive Steinbeck
• Father John Ernst Steinbeck