User:Valfontis/Opal Whiteley
Opal Whiteley (
Early life
Known to her fans simply as "Opal", Opal Irene Whiteley was born in Colton, Washington, United States in 1897. Whiteley was the oldest of five children, and her father worked as a lumberjack, a profession that necessitated the family's moving often—to various logging communities throughout Washington and Oregon. Whiteley claimed that her family moved 19 times when she was a child, but this was probably an exaggeration. When Whiteley was nearly five, the family moved to Lane County, Oregon. They lived first near Wendling, and about year later moved to Walden, about 3 miles from Cottage Grove. It is here that Whiteley began keeping a diary.
Star, Oregon
Authorship
Changed name to Opal Stanley Whiteley.
Controversy
Françoise Marie Amélie d'Orléans
"I met a (once) best seller, And I took him by the hand, And asked, 'How's OPAL WHITELEY And how does DAISY stand?' He answered, 'I can only See sloppiness and sham In novels from the nursery And poems from the pram.'" [3]
Travels
Big ol' copy'n'paste from University of London: "Whiteley devoted much of her time to the search for information about what she regarded as her true parentage. Various influential people supported her in this search. In 1923 she used money received from Lord Grey of Falloden, who had become a close friend after reading the Diary, to travel to England. From England she went to France where she visited Françoise Marie Amélie d'Orléans, the mother of Henri d'Orléans. She, in turn, provided the funds for Whiteley to travel to the Udaipur region of India, where Henri d'Orléans died, so that she could find out more about him. From September 1924 Whiteley lived at the guesthouse of the palace of the maharana of Udaipur, under the assumed name of Françoise d'Orlé.
While she was in India Whiteley carried out extensive research into the customs, activities, life and surroundings of the areas in which she traveled. The results of this work can be partially seen in an article, The Story of Unknown India, which was eventually published by The Queen magazine. She also had plans to publish longer works on the subject of India, but these never came to fruition.
Whiteley returned to England in 1925, and in 1926 she traveled to Rome, and then on to Vienna where she spent 2 years living in a convent. In 1927 she returned to England, and for the next 20 years lived variously in London and in Oxford."
Later life
More copy and paste: "She devoted herself to her writings, collecting books relating to her researches and to her Catholic faith. Her writings from this period grow increasingly confused, and many of her many friends and supporters appear to have lost touch with her from the late thirties onwards. In 1948 Whiteley was found to be unable to look after herself, and was taken into the care of Napsbury Hospital in St Albans. She died there in February 1992."
Legacy
Diary a primary source for Pacific Northwest life and logging in the early 1900s.
Beck [1]
Hoff [2]
Whiteley's works now appear in college syllabi [5], and are referenced on official government websites. The University of Oregon has a collection [6] of her personal papers. Cottage Grove has a park and festival in her honor. Most recent books about her, such as Hoff's, are written in a sympathetic light. Despite being embraced as a legitimate Oregon author, however, controversy continues to surround Whiteley, with some biographers taking a more skeptical view of her and/or her authorship, including Beck.
...choose to ignore the issue of the diary's origin and concentrate on its content, while others, such as Boulton, embrace Whiteley's story of her royal origin.
One-woman play, musical, songs, movie.
Lane County Historical Museum and Society Lane County, Oregon [7]
Opal School Portland Art Museum [8]
According to London University, the
Massachusetts Historical Society [9]
The University of London has a collection of her writings as well. [10]
Collections of writings about women in nature, spiritual journaling, etc.
Literary Oregon: One Hundred Books, 1800-2000
research and academic journals [11]
- Opal School
- Review of Beck's book from Seattle Weekly
- Review of musical Opal from the New York Times(free registration required to access site)
Works
- 1918 The Fairyland Around Us, (self-published) available on the Internet
- 1920 The Story of Opal: The Journal of an Understanding Heart (Atlantic Monthly Pub.), available on the Internet
- 1923 The Flower of Stars (self-published poems), available on the Internet
- 1929 "The Story of Unknown India", series published in women's magazine
See also
Notes
- ^ Beck, Kathrine Opal: A Life of Enchantment, Mystery, and Madness, Viking, 2003. ISBN 0143034294
- ^ Hoff, Benjamin The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow: The Mystical Nature Diary of Opal Whiteley, Penguin, 1993. ISBN 0140237208
Further reading
- Bede, Albert. Fabulous Opal Whiteley: From Logging Camp to Princess in India, Binfords & Mort, 1954. ISBN 0832303607
- Boulton, Jane & Barbara Cooney. Only Opal: The Diary of a Young Girl, PaperStar Book, 1997. ISBN 0698115643 (illustrated adaptation for grades 1-4)
- Boulton, Jane. Opal: The Journal of an Understanding Heart, Random House, 1995. ISBN 0517885166 (the diary adapted into verse)
- Lawrence, Elizabeth. Opal Whiteley: The Continuing Mystery, Thomas Harmsworth Pub., 2000. ISBN 0948807490
- Nassif, Robert Lindsey. Opal : A New Musical Adventure, S. French, 1993. ISBN 0573693927
External links
- University of Oregon Opal site
- Cottage Grove, Oregon's Opal site
- "Official" Opal fan site
- Steve McQiddy's Opal site
- Oregon Cultural Heritage Society's page on Opal
- Review of Whiteley's diary from British magazine Punch, October 6, 1920 (reprinted by Project Gutenberg)
[[Category:1897 births|Whiteley, Opal]] [[Category:1992 deaths|Whiteley, Opal]] [[Category:People from Oregon|Whiteley, Opal]] [[Category:Oregon writers|Whiteley, Opal]] [[Category:Women writers|Whiteley, Opal]]