DS, signed “steven jobs,” three pages, 8.5 x 11, February 5, 1979. Corrected memorandum agreement pertaining to the sale of "certain real premises situated in Yamhill County, Oregon," made one year earlier by Gene R. Stephenson, Lucy M. Stephenson, and Marjorie Bederman, to Steve Jobs for $150,000. The document corrects an "error in the description of the real premises" previously recorded. The first page is signed in ballpoint by Steve Jobs and countersigned by the sellers; the second page is notarized three times, with Jobs also making a handwritten amendment to the date, "March 15," and penning his initials in the margin, "s.j." The third page, headed "Schedule A," offers the revised and corrected description of the tract of land. Stapled into its original blue legal folder. In fine condition, with a light stain to the top of the first page, and creasing, tears, and losses to the bottom of the inconsequential attached "Schedule A."
Though today he is most closely associated with Cupertino and Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs came of age in Oregon: he enrolled in Portland's Reed College for the fall semester in 1972, but dropped out after just six months to preserve his parents’ meager funds. However, he hung around campus for a year and a half to audit creative courses, including classes on Shakespeare, dance, and calligraphy—these would help to shape his artistic worldview that influenced the innovation of the Macintosh computer. In his 2005 Stanford commencement speech, Jobs recalled: ‘If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.’
While at Reed, Jobs met and befriended Robert Friedland—now a billionaire financier—who was serving as the charismatic undergraduate student body president. Friedland served as the caretaker of an apple orchard south of Portland near McMinnville—the largest city in Yamhill County—which he turned into a commune called All One Farm. Jobs spent a great deal of time at the commune, and numerous accounts (including one from Steve Wozniak), attribute Apple Computer's name to Jobs's time working in the Yamhill County orchard. As the company began to achieve success—the Apple II was introduced in 1977 and became an overwhelming success—Jobs sought to diversify his investment portfolio, and purchased land near the place where he found his greatest inspiration.
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