John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902 in Salinas, California, a farming community with of about 2500 people.   He was the third of four children and the only son of John Ernst and Olive Hamiton Steinbeck.   His sisters Beth and Esther were much older than John and he felt closest to Mary, the youngest.   He spent his childhood and adolescence in the Salinas Valley, which he later called "the salad bowl of the nation."   John's mother, Olive, was the daughter of Irish immigrants.   She left her parents' ranch to become a teacher.   John remembered his mother as energetic and full of fun.   He called his father, in contrast, "a singularly silent man."   Steinbeck's father, also named John, worked as the treasurer of Monterey County.   He had chosen a safe, practical course in life, in order to support his family.  
John enjoyed literature from an early age on.   His mother read him the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Robert Louis Stevenson, and the stories of King Arthur.  
John attended Salinas High School, an experience he generally disliked, but one bright spot in his high school carrer was his ninth grade English teacher, Miss Cupp.   She admired the compositions he   wrote and encouraged him to continue with his writing.   Throughout high school, John spent most of his free time writing stories in his room.
John graduated from HS in 1919 and then went to Stanford University.   John wanted to study to be a writer, but his mother wanted him to be something practical, like a lawyer.
While attending Stanford University, John Steinbeck decided that a degree was of no use to a writer.   Instead, he studied the things that interested him and would help him progress as a writer.   He studied literature, history, and classical Greek.   He convinced university officials to let him learn human anatomy alongside the medical students.   Dissecting cadavers would help him "know more about people", he explained.   Steinbeck's creative writing teacher taught him to... [continues]

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