Any time Anne Frank sat down with her diary, in her right hand was the fountain pen she received as a gift from her maternal grandmother when she was 9. Four vears later. in the annex.”mv most prized possession” was among the favorite things and “together we’ve raced through countless diaries and compositions.” But their partnership met an untimely end in November 1943, as she recounted in “Ode to My Fountain Pen In Memoriam. Late one Friday afternoon, Anne was sitting at the kitchen table preparing to write in her diary when her father and sister took over the space to study Latin. Now without privacy, she decided to sit in a corner and rub the mold off beans instead.
Forty-five minutes later, she cleaned up her work station, sweeping the floor and tossing all the remnants into the stove. “A giant flame shot up, and I thought it was wonderful that the stove, which had been gasping its last breath, had made such a miraculous recovery.” Once her father and sister were done, Anne sat back down at the table to pick up where she left off with Kitty–but she couldn’t find her pen anywhere. “Maybe it fell in the stove, along with the beans!” Margot suggested, but Anne refused to accept that scenario. “Our darkest fears were confirmed the next day when Father went to empty the stove and discovered the clip, used to fasten it to a pocket, among the ashes. Not a trace of the gold nib was left….I’m left with one consolation, small though it may be: my fountain pen was cremated, just as I would like to be someday!”
