Salinas, Calif. – Joe and Doris Bragdon have lived in the same house in Salinas, Calif., for five decades. Joe, whose family spent six weeks crossing the country from Pennsylvania in covered trailers in the 1920s, settled down in Monterey. He eventually worked on what came to be known as “Cannery Row,” which John Steinbeck memorialized in his book by the same title.

Doris, whose childhood home is a few miles down the road in Pacific Grove, remembers seeing the famous author in the neighborhood (he grew up in Salinas, Pacific Grove, and Monterey) – John Steinbeck was always ambling about awkwardly in his large and imposing frame.

We visited the Bragdons in Salinas the day before the 26th annual Steinbeck Festival, which we attended in part to meet the author’s son, Thom Steinbeck, and in part to learn more about the man whose first-person non-fiction narrative, Travels with Charley, inspired this travel blog.

Now in their 90s, the Bragdons have a correspondingly vast wealth of stories, some of which they shared over coffee and Joe’s specialty chocolate cookies. One of their favorite stories: getting into Russia in the ‘70s, Bible in tow, because a soldier at the border happened to adore Steinbeck and, consequently, anyone hailing from his hometown.

A little research reveals that the FBI may have collected 120 pages on John Steinbeck, stemming largely from accusations that the author was sympathetic to the communist cause. Rumors began when Steinbeck first published The Grapes of Wrath, which chronicles the destitute poverty of migrant “Okies.” The stereotype hung like a shadow on Steinbeck’s reputation for the rest of his life.

In the authoritative 1,000-page biography, John Steinbeck, Writer, Jackson J. Benson reprinted a letter Steinbeck wrote in response to a request that he refute charges that his book was Jewish propaganda. The preconception, along with others, had clearly taken its toll on the writer’s spirits:

I am answering your letter with a good deal of sadness. I am sad for a time when one must know a man’s race before his work can be approved or disapproved. It does not seem important to me whether I am Jewish or not, and I know that a statement of mine is useless if an interested critic wishes to ride a preconceived thesis. I cannot see how The Grapes of Wrath can be Jewish propaganda but then I have heard it called communist propaganda also.

It happens that I am not Jewish and have no Jewish blood but it also only happens that way. I find that I do not experience any pride that it is so….

Yours is only one of many letters I have received on the same subject. It is the first I have answered and I think it is the last. I fully recognize your position and do not in the least blame you for it. I am only miserable for the time and its prejudice that prompts it. [5/7/40]

Ironically, the claims that haunted Steinbeck would later afford the Bragdons a warm reception when they crossed the border into Russia in the 1970s.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Wednesday, September 13th, 2006 | Email This Post

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