31 Facts About Opal Whiteley

Opal Irene Whiteley 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.

Over a series of months, Opal Whiteley meticulously reassembled the diary, which was first released in serial form in the Atlantic Monthly in March 1920.

Opal Whiteley frequently went by the name Francoise Marie de Bourbon-Orleans, in reference to her alleged father.

Opal Whiteley spent the remainder of her life in psychiatric care until her death in 1992 at Napsbury Hospital.

Opal Irene Whiteley was born December 11,1897, in Colton, Washington, the first of five children of Charles Edward and Lizzie Whiteley.

In reference to her alleged father, Opal Whiteley frequently went by the name Francoise Marie de Bourbon-Orleans 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.

Opal Whiteley was noted by her teachers and family members as a voracious reader who spent much of her time reading and writing.

Opal Whiteley claimed that her mother often disciplined her with severe corporal punishment.

Opal Whiteley had a great many animal friends, both wild and domestic, to whom she gave fanciful names derived from her readings in classical literature.

Opal Whiteley was thought to have been a child prodigy who was able to memorize and categorize vast amounts of information on plants and animals.

At age eight, Opal Whiteley joined the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavour, a fundamentalist group that encouraged "social growth and spiritual awareness" in rural communities.

Opal 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.

Opal Whiteley 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.

Opal Whiteley stated she ultimately had the goal of opening a museum in the area.

Opal Whiteley 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 Opal Whiteley ran out of funding to support it, largely due to her frequent requests for changes during the publishing process.

At the encouragement of friends, Opal Whiteley traveled to the East Coast in July 1919, hoping to find a publisher there to publish her work.

Opal Whiteley indicated that she had, but that the diary was largely tattered and had been kept in storage in Los Angeles.

Sedgwick requested that Opal Whiteley have the papers sent to Boston.

However, being ill-equipped to handle the public notoriety garnered by her diary's publication, Opal Whiteley left the United States and traveled to India in the 1920s, as her alleged father, Henri, Prince of Orleans, had done: She was the guest of the Maharaja of Udaipur, and wrote several articles about India for British magazines.

Opal Whiteley's presence caused some trouble with the British government in India, especially when a local cleric fell in love with her.

Opal Whiteley was committed to London's Napsbury Hospital, where she became known to the staff of Napsbury as "the Princess".

Opal Whiteley was buried at Highgate Cemetery, where her gravestone bears both her names with the inscription "I spake as a child".

Public dispute over the authenticity of Opal 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.

Biographer Benjamin Hoff supports the notion that Opal Whiteley wrote the diary as a child, based on the premise that it would have been an extraordinarily elaborate deception for the adult Opal 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.

When little Opal Whiteley said the animals and flowers talked to her, people thought that she was lying.

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:.

Mrs Whiteley then told me that Opal was an orphan; that the little girl was not her own daughter.

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.

In Jerry Rust's 2011 novel, The Covered Bridge Murders, Opal Whiteley is featured as a character in the plot.