The Mysterious Mind of Opal Whiteley: Four Unique Lives Compared

By Lili Marlene

Opal Whiteley (1897-1992) remains a mysterious figure. Her life began as a brilliant young girl with a passion for geology and nature living in logging camps in Oregon, and ended as a psychiatric patient in the Napsbury Hospital in England, after forty-four years of institutionalization. How did this happen? Can the riddle of multi-synaesthete Opal Whiteley be solved through comparing her life with the lives of other famous and unusual figures which are in their own rights mysterious? The Helen Demidenko literary scandal of the 1990s in Australia, the character Amy in the classic horror film The Curse of the Cat People, the young Californian girl Jani Schofield who was turned into an international celebrity following her psychiatric institutionalization, and Val Lewton, an exploited 1940s Hollywood movie producer who refused to play the game are some of the fascinating lives examined in this short book, which includes links to recommended reading and references.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lili Marlene
• Release date: Sep 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301561018

Lili Marlene

Lili Marlene is not my real name. I live in Australia. I'm an educated person and I've studied psychology at university. I've also worked in a variety of occupations but by far my most important and interesting job to date has been as a mother. I enjoy many different types of synaesthesia. There are few people whose company I enjoy more than my own, and I've been a loner for as long as I can remember.

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The Mysterious Mind of Opal Whiteley:

Four Unique Lives Compared

by Lili Marlene

Copyright Lili Marlene 2012

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Table of Contents

Opal Whiteley Biography

Whiteley Compared

References and Further Reading

Opal Whiteley Biography

Back to Contents

Opal Irene Whiteley was born in 1897, reportedly at home at a logging camp, and according to her parents no birth certificate was recorded. Like her mother Opal had a Caucasian appearance but with quite dark colouring, and would later bear a striking resemblance to her younger sister Pearl. Lizzie Whiteley, Opal’s mother, was considered an odd person (Brown 2010 p.182). During Opal’s life Opal was also known by the names Opal Stanley Whiteley, Princesse Francoise d’Orleans and Francoise Marie de Bourbon-Orleans. At the WorldCat Identities website fifteen different names by which Whiteley was known are listed. Opal Whiteley was a nature writer and a diarist who was raised in Oregon logging camps. She became internationally famous when her childhood diary was published when she was in her 20s and became a bestseller. During her time and also today Whiteley is a deeply mysterious, strange, legendary and romanticised figure.

There is abundant evidence that Whiteley was a child prodigy or intellectually gifted, with characteristics that could be seen as autistic and savant-like abilities. According to one source she was reading and quoting the Bible by the age of three. She studied first and second grades in one year, and was accelerated another year in her schooling. At six years Opal talked like an adult, according to her grandmother. Opal enjoyed counting things and lining up objects (Brown 2010 p.183). She was a voracious reader of a range of genres and her school had to take special measures to procure sufficient books for Opal’s independent study. A school teacher recalled Opal as a dreamy but studious student, unusual and the most intellectual in the school. The academic Julie Brown cites clumsiness and very acute hearing and vision as signs of Asperger syndrome displayed by Whiteley (Brown 2012 p.183). A photographic memory was in evidence at school and also in church when Opal recited whole pages from the bible. According to Stephen Williamson Opal had a favourite Uncle Henry who gave her geological specimens and taught her many things. According to the Encyclopedia of World Biography, as a child Whiteley acquired a collection of thousands of geological, botanical and insect specimens. At the age of thirteen Opal was giving talks about nature with the aid of items from her huge collection of scientifically labelled rocks and biological specimens. At seventeen Opal held a senior position in a youth organization, Junior Christian Endeavour. Her personality at this age has been described as innocent but very well-informed, earnest and seriously religious but also whimsical and self-assured (Wolff 1995 quoting Bede). Giving talks to large audiences resulted in Opal experiencing some strange kind of breakdown in which she lost her hearing and her voice.

Opal’s aspirations turned towards writing and study. University professors were so impressed by her self-taught knowledge of the natural world that they offered her a scholarship and early admission to the University of Oregon without the usual entrance requirements (Brown 2010 p.182). She was a university student for only eighteen months. She never made the transition from autodidact to university student. She had no involvement with campus activities and her plan to find work while studying was unsuccessful. According to one source, Whiteley had a habit of not returning books that she had borrowed from numerous libraries. Opal then made a modest living running nature classes for children. Whiteley’s next idea was to get a portfolio of herself posing in character photographs and head to Los Angeles, California to launch a career as a movie actress. She was unsuccessful, and returned to giving nature lectures for children, while writing a nature book for children, The Fairyland Around Us. During her life Whiteley was the author of a number of books and articles, some self-published. As a young woman Whiteley was able to befriend and charm rich, famous, creative and aristocratic people that she met, and it appears that a substantial part of her adult life was spent