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.
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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 write stories that were “true.” She didn’t mean the events in the story had to have actually happened, but instead the story and characters must reflect real human feelings and conflicts. During his college years, Steinbeck worked at a number of different jobs to help pay for his educ…
…gories including physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, peace, and economics. The Prize is awarded to those who have made valuable contributions to the “good of humanity.” The Nobel Prize was the greatest honor of John Steinbeck’s life.His acceptance speech concluded with the observation that “St. John the Apostle may well be paraphrased: In the end is the Word, and the Word is Man–the Word is with Man.” After receiving the Prize, John began having heart problems and he was moved to his home in New York. John Steinbeck died peacefully on December 20, 1968, with Elaine lying at his side. He was 66 years old. As John Steinbeck experienced life in Ameria he recorded his observation, his enjoyment of life, and his belief in human goodness. Several of his works are now considered classics. His books differ in content and in form, “Of Mice and Men” is similar to a play and “The Sea of Cortez” is a scientific account. But Steinbeck wrote all of his books with a particular goal in mind. As he explained, “My whole work drive as been aimed at making people understand each other.”
