A Short History of Sonoma

5. Mr. and Mrs. London

86 Chapter Five Mr. and Mrs. London California has produced some of the world’s most famous authors. A few were born in the Golden State, others chose to live and write within its borders, and some are deeply associated with the regions in which they lived and worked. For example, the works of hard-boiled Raymond Chandler and equally tough Charles Bukowski exemplify the darker side of Los Angeles. Dashiell Hammett and Mark Twain were born in the East and Midwest, but both counted San Francisco home for a time and created memorable characters there. The Central Valley gave us John Steinbeck and William Saroyan. And Sonoma gave us Jack London. he didn’t start off in the Valley of the Moon, but he was a Bay Area boy. Born in San Francisco in 1876 and given the name John, the future Jack London was the child of Flora Wellman and, most likely, itinerant astrologer William Chaney. The two were not married, and Chaney did not stick around to be a father. The high-strung Flora struggled to raise her child, but was helped by Virginia Prentiss, an ex-slave who would be London’s mother figure throughout his formative years. While her son was still an infant, Flora married John London, a Civil War veteran and widower whose two youngest children, Eliza and Ida, m r . a n d m r s . l o n d o n 87 were still at home. He worked hard to support his family despite losing a lung to pneumonia during the war years. London gave his new stepson his own last name, and by the time he was a teenager, young John London was known as Jack. Poverty and many relocations around the San Francisco and Oakland region meant that Jack had an uneven education, but he had the great fortune to be living in Oakland when the poet Ina Coolbrith was the librarian at the Oakland Public Library. She took an interest in the bright young boy and helped steer him to the path that would eventually lead him to literature. When he was old enough, Jack began to contribute to the family economy. He raided the Southern Pacific Railroad’s private oyster beds in the bay, then turned enforcer against the oyster pirates. When he was seventeen he shipped aboard the Sophia Sutherland and became a seal hunter. But once home, he was forced to take menial, hard-labor jobs, becoming, in his words, a “work beast.” This existence grated on his soul, and he soon joined the famous Kelly’s Army of unemployed workingmen , did some hoboing, and spent time in jail in Erie County, New York. He made it back to California in 1894, still just eighteen years old. His experiences on the road exposed him to injustices that solidified his simmering political views, and he would eventually be known around Oakland as the Boy Socialist. He finished high school and even managed a semester at the University of California, Berkeley, but classroom life didn’t take. One thing had lit a fire inside him, however: writing. At his mother ’s suggestion, Jack had entered a literary contest sponsored by the San Francisco Morning Call newspaper in 1893 for the best descriptive article by a local writer under the age of twenty-two. He wrote up the experience of piloting the Sophia Sutherland through a typhoon off Japan, and was stunned when he won the $25 first prize. Later, at Oakland High School, his talent was recognized and encouraged by a perceptive teacher. But further forays into the writing life were delayed by the lure of yet another adventure. In the summer of 1897 Jack and James Shepard, the husband of his stepsister Eliza, took off for the Yukon, the region of northwest Canada that was the epicenter of a frenzied gold rush. The older Shepard couldn’t 88 a s h o r t h i s t o r y o f s o n o m a complete the trip and went back home, leaving Jack to find new partners . By January 1898 Jack was broke and almost broken, suffering from scurvy and the unrelenting cold. As the spring thaw approached, he made plans to return to Oakland, arriving home in the summer to find that his stepfather had died and he was expected to help support the family once more. Jack...