Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1047605
places of his home turf stayed with him into his professional life. "I think I would like to write the story of this whole valley," the author wrote to a friend in 1933. "Of all the little towns and all the farms and ranches in the wilder hills. I can see how I would like to do it so that it would be the valley of the world." Nearly 20 years later, he accomplished that goal, publishing "East of Eden," his ambitious novel set in the Salinas Valley. The region was a setting in several other Steinbeck works, including "Of Mice and Men," "Tortilla Flat" and "Pastures of Heaven." At the time of his birth, Steinbeck's father, John Ernst Sr., was a Salinas flour mill manager. His mother Olive, a former school teacher, possessed a keen interest in literature and culture that she passed on to her son and his sisters Elizabeth, Esther and Mary. The family struggled for a time when the flour mill was shuttered, putting John Sr. out of work and causing the subsequent failure of the feed and grain store he purchased. John Jr. showed an early passion for writing, staying up late in his Central Avenue attic scribbling away. "I used to sit in that little room upstairs and write little stories and little pieces and send them out to magazines under a false name and I never put a return address on them," he wrote as an adult. "I wonder what I was thinking of? I was scared to death to get a rejection slip, but more, to get an acceptance." By his early teens, his ambition was set in stone: he wanted to be a writer. Steinbeck enrolled at Stanford University, taking courses in creative writing and history. In 1923, he signed up for a biology course at Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, sparking an interest that would help forge his deep friendship with Monterey resident and marine biologist Ed Ricketts. Steinbeck was no stranger to Pacific Grove. As a youngster, he spent many happy days there, both with relatives and at the summer house his parents maintained in that community and in neighboring Monterey. The clanking, stinky sardine canneries that lined what was then known as Ocean View Boulevard would have been a powerful lure for exploration to a curious lad such as he. Later, he would immor talize the street in "Cannery Row," his hugely successful 1945 novel. That book inspired the City of Monterey to 96 96 C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • H O L I D A Y 2 0 1 8 Steinbeck became fascinated with the i Steinbeck became fascinated with the f Steinbeck became fascinated with the i Steinbeck became fascinated with the i Steinbeck became fascinated with the ospreys on the Sag Harbor, Long Island ospreys on the Sag Harbor, Long Island property he owned with wife Elaine (right) property he owned with wife Elaine (right) who wrote: "He knew they built their nests who wrote: "He knew they built their nests out of junk, so he did it for them." out of junk, so he did it for them." Photos: Courtesy of Trotter Galleries