Steinbeck in with his sister Mary, sitting on the red pony, Jill, at the Salinas Fairgrounds. John Steinbeck was born in the farming town of Salinas, California on 27 February His father, John Ernst Steinbeck, was not a terribly successful man; at one time or another he was the manager of a Sperry flour plant, the owner of a feed and grain store, the treasurer of Monterey County.