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= Opal_Whiteley =
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Introduction
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Opal Irene Whiteley (December 11, 1897 - February 16, 1992) was an
American nature writer and diarist who gained international fame for
the publication of her childhood diary, which featured meditations and
observations of nature and wildlife. Raised in logging camps in rural
Oregon, Whiteley was considered by some a child prodigy, and expressed
intense interest in both writing and science in her youth. As an
adolescent, she began tutoring and holding lectures on natural history
and geology in her community, earning a reputation as an amateur
naturalist, as well as becoming a noted speaker for the Young People's
Society of Christian Endeavour.
While attending the University of Oregon, Whiteley toured the state
giving lectures on nature and the environment. In 1918, she
self-published 'The Fairyland Around Us', which combined factual
scientific information along with mystical observations of nature. In
1919, she traveled to Boston to seek wider distribution of the book.
There, she met 'Atlantic Monthly' publisher Ellery Sedgwick, who
instead suggested that she publish her childhood diary, the fragments
of which she had kept stored since her youth. Over a series of months,
Whiteley meticulously reassembled the diary, which was first released
in serial form in the 'Atlantic Monthly' in March 1920. It was
published in book format in September 1920 under the title 'The Story
of Opal: The Journal of an Understanding Heart'. The publication of
the diary earned Whiteley international fame, though it was widely
speculated that she had actually written the work as an adult.
Throughout her life, Whiteley claimed to have been the biological
daughter of French naturalist Henri, Prince of Orléans, who died
during an expedition in India in 1901, after which she was allegedly
sent to Oregon and adopted. She frequently went by the name Françoise
Marie de Bourbon-Orléans, in reference to her alleged father. The
details surrounding her family history have been the subject of wide
speculation, with several biographers attributing the claims to
delusions stemming from mental illness. Following the publication of
her diary, Whiteley relocated to England, where she was eventually
committed to a psychiatric hospital in 1948. She spent the remainder
of her life in psychiatric care until her death in 1992 at Napsbury
Hospital.
In 1986, writer Benjamin Hoff published 'The Singing Creek where the
Willows Grow: The Rediscovered Diary of Opal Whiteley', a biography
accompanying her full diary, which won the National Book Award in
1988. The diary has been republished in several other editions, and
Whiteley's life story has been adapted in film and theater
productions.
Early life and writings (1897–1915)
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Opal Irene Whiteley was born December 11, 1897, in Colton, Washington,
the first of five children of Charles Edward and Lizzie Whiteley.
Charles was of French Canadian ancestry. Beginning in childhood,
Whiteley apocryphally claimed to be the daughter of French naturalist
Henri, Prince of Orléans, and an unnamed Austrian duchess. By
Whiteley's account, she was taken to Oregon in 1904 and brought to a
lumber camp, where she was adopted by the Whiteleys, who she claimed
were in fact not her biological parents. In reference to her alleged
father, Whiteley frequently went by the name 'Françoise Marie de
Bourbon-Orléans' throughout her life.
In 1903, after having spent almost a year in Wendling, Oregon, the
Whiteley family moved to Walden, near the town of Cottage Grove, where
Opal was raised largely in poverty. Beginning at age six, she began
writing a personal diary in which she observed the animals and natural
world around her, sometimes using crayons, and utilizing her own
phonetic form of spelling. Whiteley was noted by her teachers and
family members as a voracious reader who spent much of her time
reading and writing.
Whiteley claimed that her mother often disciplined her with severe
corporal punishment. Her grandmother, Mary Ann Scott supported this
claim, stating that Opal's mother frequently beat Opal for "looking at
nothing with big eyes ... inattention and absentmindedness." According
to Whiteley and her grandmother, as a child Whiteley was usually
punished for daydreaming and "meditations", for running away to go on
"explores" instead of working, for misguided attempts to help around
the house that ended in disaster, and especially the time and effort
she spent on caring for the animals around the lumber camp. She had a
great many animal friends, both wild and domestic, to whom she gave
fanciful names derived from her readings in classical literature.
Despite her troubles, Whiteley wrote of her childhood as though she
had often been very happy: even after a severe beating, she could
write: "I'm real glad I'm alive."
Whiteley was thought to have been a child prodigy who was able to
memorize and categorize vast amounts of information on plants and
animals. One of her schoolteachers, Lily Black, felt that she was a
genius; she was two grades ahead of her age in school, and Black took
advantage of the then-new interlibrary loan system to get books for
Whiteley from the Oregon State Library.
At age eight, Whiteley joined the Young People's Society of Christian
Endeavour, a fundamentalist group that encouraged "social growth and
spiritual awareness" in rural communities. Her studies of the
environment led her to become a noted amateur naturalist in the
community, and she began leading lectures at age thirteen in which she
educated locals on geology, natural history, animals, insects, and
plants, garnering the nickname the "Sunshine Fairy" among locals. She
concurrently became a leader of the local chapter of the Junior
Christian Endeavor and gave talks in Portland; one attendee there
recounted that she "spoke about God being everywhere, and how every
little creature, plant, and tree in the woods bore testimony to His
presence."
Academics and ''The Fairyland Around Us'' (1915–1919)
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By age seventeen, Whiteley had been elected as the state
superintendent of the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor,
and her lectures on nature led to 'Cottage Grove Sentinel' editor
Elbert Bede writing a series of articles about her in 1915. Following
a well-received speaking engagement for the Junior Christian Endeavor
in Eugene, Whiteley visited the University of Oregon, where a
professor of geology noted that she knew "more about geology than do
many students that have graduated from my department." This led to the
university offering her acceptance into their science program, in
which she enrolled in the fall of 1916. In the spring of her freshman
year, she was offered to speak at the July 1917 national Christian
Endeavor event in New York City, but did not attend due to her
mother's death from breast cancer in May 1917, which was shortly
followed by her grandfather's death.
Whiteley continued to pursue her studies, but after a series of
incomplete grades in her courses, she lost an academic scholarship
that supported her ability to attend. She spent the summer of 1917
touring the state and giving nature lectures in an effort to earn
money for her tuition, and resumed her studies in the fall of that
year. During this period, she resided alone in a small house near the
university campus, which she had filled with "an estimated sixteen
thousand specimens of natural history." She concurrently developed an
interest in genealogy during this time, and changed her middle name
from Irene to Stanley after discovering an ancestor who bore this
name. During her sophomore year, she started the 'Phusis Philoi'
(Greek: 'Nature Lovers') club at the university for young women
interested in science and natural history. Whiteley stated she
ultimately had the goal of opening a museum in the area.
In the spring of 1918, shortly after making her museum announcement to
the public, Whiteley promptly left Oregon, traveling to Los Angeles
with the intention of earning money through lectures to finance its
plans. In California, she held numerous lectures for children, which
she entitled "The Fairyland Around Us". By June 1918, she began
writing a book of the same title, which blended recollections of her
lectures with observations on plant and animal life, with photographs
of animals as well as her students, along with hand-drawn images. She
also incorporated snippets of her childhood diary in the book.
Publication efforts for 'The Fairyland Around Us' began in December
1918, but its initial planned release never reached fruition as
Whiteley ran out of funding to support it, largely due to her frequent
requests for changes during the publishing process. This resulted in
the publishers scrapping the project and destroying the plates for its
illustrations, which emotionally devastated her and left her suicidal.
Describing the book's manuscript, biographer Benjamin Hoff notes:
"Like her other writings, it balanced seriousness with humor,
scientific scrutiny with mysticism, and information with emotion."
Several months later, after regaining her health, Whiteley continued
to pursue the project, eventually accruing enough funds to
self-publish 'The Fairyland Around Us' in a run of approximately
200-300 copies, featuring hand-pasted drawings and postcards in place
of the plate illustrations that had been destroyed. Copies of 'The
Fairyland Around Us' were distributed on a subscription basis, and
earned Whiteley praise from Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft,
and Kate Douglas Wiggin, who sent her letters of appreciation.
Publication of diaries and fame (1920–1923)
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At the encouragement of friends, Whiteley traveled to the East Coast
in July 1919, hoping to find a publisher there to publish her work. In
September 1919, she visited the offices of Ellery Sedgwick, publisher
of the 'Atlantic Monthly'. By some accounts, Sedgwick initially
declined to publish the book, but, after interviewing Whiteley and
finding her recounting of her life story intriguing, inquired if she
had documented it in a diary. Whiteley indicated that she had, but
that the diary was largely tattered (which she attributed to her
sisters' destruction of it throughout her childhood) and had been kept
in storage in Los Angeles.
Sedgwick requested that Whiteley have the papers sent to Boston. The
fragmented papers soon arrived, "crammed in a hatbox." Sedgwick, who
felt the diary would prove a viable literary work, arranged for
Whiteley to reside in his mother-in-law's Brookline home, where she
spent the following nine months methodically reassembling the work.
The diary was apparently block-printed in crayon and phonetically
spelled on various types of paper. According to Sedgwick's account of
the reconstruction, it was a laborious undertaking, as many of the
torn pieces were only large enough to contain a single letter and the
pieces had been stored in Whiteley's hat box for years.
The first serialized installment of Whiteley's diary was published by
the 'Atlantic Monthly' in March 1920, branded as "a revelation of the
spirit of childhood." It became a swift success with readers,
garnering the publication a significant influx of new subscribers.
Based on its success as a serial, the 'Atlantic Monthly' published the
full work in book form as 'The Story of Opal: The Journey of an
Understanding Heart'. Photos that initially appeared in the book
showed Whiteley at work on the reconstruction, along with pictures of
two of the original diary pages.
Shortly after the publication of Whiteley's diary, speculation grew
among the public regarding its authenticity, with many believing the
work had been written by Whiteley as an adult. The diary also resulted
in strife between Whiteley and her family due to its unflattering
depiction of them, suggesting they were abusive to her, as well as for
Whiteley's claims that they were not her biological relatives. Her
siblings, frequently harassed by journalists, relocated and changed
their names to avoid public scrutiny.
Subsequent works, relocation to England (1924–1947)
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After the publication of her diary, Whiteley self-published a book of
poetry entitled 'The Flower of Stars' in 1923. However, being
ill-equipped to handle the public notoriety garnered by her diary's
publication, Whiteley left the United States and traveled to India in
the 1920s, as her alleged father, Henri, Prince of Orléans, had done:
She was the guest of the Maharaja of Udaipur, and wrote several
articles about India for British magazines. Her presence caused some
trouble with the British government in India, especially when a local
cleric fell in love with her. Leaving India, she eventually settled in
London.
Later life and death (1948–1992)
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In her later years in England, Whiteley grew increasingly mentally
disturbed, and often lived in dire poverty. In 1948, English
authorities found her residing in a squalid basement apartment,
surrounded by thousands of books. She was committed to London's
Napsbury Hospital, where she became known to the staff of Napsbury as
"the Princess". Whiteley remained at Napsbury until her death in 1992.
Whiteley was buried at Highgate Cemetery, where her gravestone bears
both her names with the inscription "I spake as a child".
Authenticity of diary
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Public dispute over the authenticity of Whiteley's diary began shortly
after its serialization, with many readers alleging she had actually
written the diary at age 20, and not when she was a child. Whiteley's
publisher Ellery Sedgwick contended this, stating that it was
"unquestionably the work of a child," and asserting its authenticity
in correspondence to 'The Oregonian' in 1920. According to biographer
Kathrine Beck, correspondence preserved by the Massachusetts
Historical Society from Whiteley to Sedgwick proves that Sedgwick was
at least aware of the existence of her diary prior to their meeting,
suggesting that he may have partially invented the tale of how the
diary came to his attention (he claimed to have learned of it through
an organic discussion during their first encounter with one another).
Biographer Benjamin Hoff supports the notion that Whiteley wrote the
diary as a child, based on the premise that it would have been an
extraordinarily elaborate deception for the adult Whiteley to first
create a diary as a child might have printed it, then tear it up,
store it and reassemble it for Sedgwick and the 'Atlantic Monthly'.
Furthermore, Hoff indicated that he had examined some of the few
remaining diary pages and that chemical tests suggested that the
crayons and paper had been manufactured prior to World War I. This
claim was initially made in 'Opal Whiteley, The Unsolved Mystery' by
Elizabeth Lawrence, in which she noted that she had had the diary
pages submitted for scientific scrutiny.
Historian Jennifer Chambers writes in 'Remarkable Oregon Women:
Revolutionaries & Visionaries' (2015) that "opinions differ
widely" on the diary's origins, and that "whole books and
dissertations have been written positing theories going both ways."
Parentage
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Whiteley's claims about her family history have also been the subject
of public debate, with a number of historians claiming that mental
illness led her to engage in delusional fantasies about her "true"
parents. Commenting in 1986 on her claims of being the daughter of
Henri, Prince of Orléans, Hoff said: "After three years of intensive
research, I found no evidence that she is anyone other than the
daughter of Edward and Elizabeth Whiteley. The fact is, the proof is
overwhelming that the Whiteleys are her natural parents." Hoff cites
Whiteley's alternate account of her parentage as evidence of latent
mental illness, and the fantasies rooted in her childhood fascination
with India, where Henri, Prince of Orléans died during a 1901
expedition. Hoff asserts that Whiteley's mental illness was
responsible for the ruinous circumstances that recurred throughout her
life:
However, G. Evert Baker, an attorney and leader of the Young People's
Society of Christian Endeavour in Portland of which Whiteley became a
member in her youth, supported Whiteley's claim that she had in fact
been adopted:
Preservation of materials
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Contemporarily, only several original copies of Whiteley's 'The
Fairyland Around Us' (1918), are extant; one copy is held by the
University of Oregon in their archive of Whiteley's papers, which also
includes personal correspondence, photographs, classroom and literary
notes, newspaper clippings, pamphlets, and materials related to
Whiteley's involvement with the Christian Endeavor society. Various
correspondence written by Whiteley during her later years in England
is held by the University of London.
Though the U.S. copyright of Whiteley's diary has lapsed, the
international copyright is still extant and is held by the library of
the University of London. The full dramatic rights to the diary are
held by Robert Lindsey-Nassif, author of the off-Broadway musical
'Opal'.
Literary
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The diary was reprinted in 1962 with a lengthy foreword by E. S.
Bradburne (Elizabeth Lawrence), as 'Opal Whiteley, the Unsolved
Mystery'. Lawrence's version has been reissued in an expanded edition
as 'Opal Whiteley, the Mystery Continues'.
The diary was reprinted in 1986, accompanied by a biography and
foreword by Benjamin Hoff, and again, with a new afterword, in 1994.
Hoff's reprint of the journal contains a detailed account of his
research into Whiteley's life and the origins of her diary, and
supplies evidence that concludes that the diary was authentically
created in childhood, though he indicates that he disbelieves
Whiteley's claims of her adoption.
In 1984, an adaptation of her diary was published by Jane Boulton as
'Opal: The Journal of an Understanding Heart'.
Children's author and illustrator Barbara Cooney published "Only Opal:
The Diary of a Young Girl," using text from Jane Boulton's "Opal: The
Journal of an Understanding Heart," in 1994, via Philomel Books, a
division of The Putnam & Grosset Group.
Film and theater
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The diary was adapted into an Off-Broadway musical by Robert
Lindsey-Nassif, opening in New York in 1992, published by Samuel
French, Inc.
In March 2010, Oregon Public Broadcasting aired an in-house
documentary, 'Oregon Experience: Opal Whiteley'.
'Opal', a narrative feature film inspired by the life of Opal Whiteley
and directed by Dina Ciraulo, premiered in the 2010 Mill Valley Film
Festival. It had a week-long theatrical run at the Bijou Art Cinemas
in Eugene, Oregon. The self-funded film won several awards.
In Jerry Rust's 2011 novel, 'The Covered Bridge Murders', Opal
Whiteley is featured as a character in the plot.
External links
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*
*
** (1918) via Internet Archive
* with additional resources, via University of Oregon
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Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opal_Whiteley
