U .
THE SUNDAY- OREGONIAN. PORTLAND.
Educators Tell of Vivid Imag
ination of Opal Whiteley.
DATES
I.OTe for Mother and Insatiable
Iesire for Things of Woods .
Recalled by Teachers.
MARCH 7. 1 020
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TXIVERSITT OF OREGON', Eu
gene. March S. (Special.) Opal
Whitcley's diary. "The Story of Opal."
in the March Atlantic Monthly, and
the short biography by the author
which precedes it, are being: read
with great enthusiasm by the fac
ulty members under whom she stud
ied when In the university. From
the fall of 1918 to March, 1918, of her
life before coming: to the university
they have little knowledge except
that she seemed to love her mother
very much and spoke of her often to
them.
"Of the genuineness of the biogra
phy I cannot speak, for I have no
way of knowing whether it is true;
but I do think Opal was sincere in
what ehe said there," eaid Dr. War
ren D. Smith, head of the department
of geology, today. Dr. Smith was
Miss Whiteley's major professor, and
knew her better than, any other fac
ulty member. "There are three ways
of interpreting the biographical mat
ter. Either it is all genuine, or Opal
has written what she believed to be
true, after creating it in her own
imagination, or it is all false."
Ace Cmifi Queatlon.
When she registered in the univer
sity. Opal gave the date of her. birth
as December 11, 1897, which makes
her older than stated in the Atlantic
fhe wrote "Charles Edward Whiteley,
of Cottage Grove," in the space which
(ailed for the name of "father or
guardian," not designating which he
was. She gave her birthplace as Col
ton, Wash. Although the editor of
the Atlantic -says she was born,
"where, we have no knowledge."
Opal always spoke of her mother
as her best friend.- She mVist have
meant by this the woman she now
fpeaks of as her foster mother, since
the said in March, 1918, that her
"mother had gone to homegoing a
year before." She said at this time:
"My dearest girl chum was my
mother. In my love of music, art.
poetry, biography, the drama, history
ehe was in close sympathy with me
and we had many wonderful twilight
hours together."
Opal Whiteley, according to all
faculty members and students who
knew her. was a most remarkable
and unusual girl. She lived all alone
in a tiny house on the outskirts of
town. Here the few rooms were
filled with her 1K.000 specimen of all
sorts of rocks, plants, butterflys and
insects and her books. She did a huge
amount of reading on all subjects,
history, art, biograph, music and the
drama and held the record in her
freshman year as doing more reading
than any other woman in her class.
Club Farmed for Srlt.
"One of the things which bothered
her most," said Dr. Smith, "was the
fact that she had no intimate contact
with other students."
Opal did not take a part in student
body activities, except in a Fhusis
Fhijoi "lovers of nature" club which
rhe organized herself early in 1918.
The club did not have a chance to
make much nrogress before she left
college, at which time it ceased to
exist.
As state superintendent of the
Junior Christian Endeavor for two
and one-half years. Opal had an op
portunity to know many of the chil
dren of the state, in whom she was
much interested.
Dr. Smith would express no opinion
as to the genuineness of the diary.
"J knew Opal as a student fn
geology," he said. "She was very
irregular in the way shn worked, but
had unbounded entliwiasm, and a
Ftrong personality. I never worried
whether she was doing her work ac
cording to rule or not. She wanted
the spirit and not the formula. Her
work was distinctly not standardized,
but it would be a sad world if all
' work was standardized. She had a
wonderful fund of information, al
though it was not systematic."
Girl Called firnivu.
"Her work was never scientific."
said Dr. John Bovard, head of the de- I
partment of zoolorry. under whom i
Opal studied bird life. "She is a child
In her mind still and extremely imagi
native. She Is a genius in her way."
Dr. Bovard intimated that he be
lieved that she had received help in
the preparation of her diary, although
he said this was only his belief.
"I have not seen enough of the
diary really to tell anything definite
about it," said Professor A. R.
Sweotser. head of the department of
botany.
"I think that by piecing the diary
tocether. she can give to it any rendi
tion she chooses. She always lived
entirely in another realm."
Opal is now living near Boston.
LASSIE'S DIARY FAMOUS
COTTAGE GROVE GIRL'S STORY
FEATURED IX MAGAZINE.
Story of Opal" Linked With Opal
AVhitelcy, Lover of Great Out
floors Incident Doubted.
'
(Continued From First Pace.)
Mass
TWIN FALLS EXPECTS 500
s Preparing;
of American
aged her along the lines which her
unusual-nature was bound to follow
and who expressed a natural par
ental fear of the results of so abnor
mal a development.
Talent Attributed to Parent.
Now like a thunderbolt from the
skies comes Opal's diary in which she
attributes her unusual talents to par
ents who died when she was a little
tot and in a fascinating manner she
relates how she came to be substi
tuted for another Opal Whiteley who
died at about that time and how she
was brought to Cottage Grove from
Washington, where the Whiteleys had
been and where the tot whose place
the diary has her take is supposed to
have passed on. and ever after she
passed as the other little girl whom
many Cottage Grove people had
known before.
It is admitted that Opal kept a
diary, that she was ever writing in
it and that she has woven in a most
fantastic style the history of her
early life in that portion of the diary
which has so far been published. That
the greater number of the events re
lated in the diary, about which she
has painted word pictures that are
most weirdly remarkable, sometimes
pathetic, childishly yet supernatural
ly told, are in the main true beyond
doubt, but the father, who is yet em
ployed in the lumber camps, is appar
ently too much grieved and too much
worried about Opal's welfare, when
questioned upon this subject, to leave
any doubt that he believes Opal to be
his own child, and none but a finished
actor could act the part taken by the
Grandmother Scott, unless she
thought she told the truth, when she
explains how impossible is this as
tounding revelation in The Story of
Opal," as related in Atlantic.
Substitution la Doubted.
On the trip from Washington to
Cottage Grove when the alleged sub
stitution was supposed to have been
made, according to the diary. Opal
was with only her mother, but there
were a few weeks between the time
Mr. Whiteley preceded Mrs. Whiteley
and the arrival of the mother with
the child.
Could Mrs. Whiteley have made a
substitution and hidden from the
father the death of his own child and
found another whose resemblance to
the other Opal was so remarkable as
to fool even the father? No mother
will believe that anything of this sort
could have happened.
No father will believe that such a
substitution could be made without
discovery. No one can doubt the sin
cerity of Mr. Whiteley's grief when
he speaks of this most unusual de
nial of parentage and says that the
child he left with' the mother was
the one who arrived here. Opal has
a remarkable resemblance to pictures
of Mrs. Whiteley and a characteristic
resemblance to other members of the
family.
Mrs. Whiteley is no longer here to
speak for herself.
Childish Dream Suapertcd.
That Opal believes that she is the
daughter of angel parents who were"
great lovers and students of nature,
highly cultured and wealthy, is
equally almost beyond doubt. Is the
unusual story of her substitution a
childish dream upon which her mind
has worked until she has come to
believe it?
Is the entire story the child of a
most inventive imagination, , or does
it partially reveal an inexplicable
mystery?
That probably Is the most talked :
of question in Cottage Grove, where
so many Know opal ana are lnter-
believable, . yet so realistic, woven
about daily events in such a manner
as to give it all the earmarks of truth
and accuracy written, so the editors
say, in the cramped and painful print
of a child of six, an age when it
would seem impossible for a child to
invent a piece of fiction which would
be so unusual.
Joan of Arc Story Similar
The only story like unto this that
comes to mind is that of the peasant
maid, Joan of . Arc. She, too, heard
voices, and they directed her life and
actions along a path of glory. Few
persons in modern times believe that
she really heard those voices, but
the maid believed that she heard them
and the things they directed her to
do, and which she did do, were very
real.
Can it be that at about the age of
six, that at the time of the removal
of the Whiteleys from Washington to
Cottage Grove, the nature of the lit
tle Opal was changed, that the nature
which was that of her parents left
the body and flew to a spiritual world
in the great unknown and that an
other nature took possession of the
deserted tenement of clay, that the
new Opal not remembering the par
ents of the other Opal, thought that
a substitution of body as well as of
spirit had taken place and that the
parents, having had charge of. the
body and not the spirit and the na
ture, did not know of this substitu
tion which did not charge the form
or features or family resemblance?
Day D re a ma Cause Real Falls.
Those who Delieve mat trie spirits
of the dead are about us might easily
work out such a theory, for the Opal
which we have known, while aggra-
vatingly naughty, as her diary re
lates, yet seemed to be from the world
apart, a being of another world. She
seemed often even herself to forget
her own bodily presence here when
in day dreams she would fall from
trees and other high places.
Many who have always known the
Whiteleys scout the Idea that is set
down in Opal's diary. The parent and
other relatives, apparently sore at
heart, characterize it as the vagaries
of a mind that has been abnormally
developed along unusual lines. A few
believe Opal's story and nearly all
believe that Opal herself is sincere
in its telling.
. It is a most remarkable piece of
literature, and is a fulfillment of the
prediction of her many loving friends
that Opal would attain a high goal
if she did not wreck her health with
overwork, which she frequently has
come near doing.
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uray s
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GRAY'S VALUES WILL TELL
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366 WASHINGTON, at WEST PARK
CARAVAN INTERESTS ARMY
Recruiting Officers to Take Ad
vantage of Ad Club Convention.
OREGONIAN NEWS BUREAU.
Washington. March 6. Orders have
been communicated to the command
ing general of the western depart
ment of the army at San Francisco to
have some reconnaissance guns and
machine guns join in the caravan of
Pacific coast advertising clubs, state
highway commissions and automobile
associations to the convention of the
Pacific Coast Ad clubs at Stockton,
CaL, in May, Senator AicNary was ad
vised by Adjustant-General Harris
today.
In his letter to Senator McXary the
adjutant general said:
"The army recruiting officers
through whose districts the caravan
will pass are those at Seattle and
Portland, Or. It would be greatly ap
preciated if the Pacific Coast Adver
tising Clubs' association' could keep
these recruiting officers Informed as
to itinerary and dates, to the end that,
as you suggest, advantage may be
taken of the opportunity to stimulate
recruiting for the army."
CARNEY GETS TWO YEARS
Radica
ested in her every act, particuarly in penitentiary at beavenworth. Kan.
her arrival as a writer able to get
her story into the most prominent
City Is Preparing; for Convention
egion.
TWIN FALLS, Idaho. March 6.
(Special.) Plans are maturing for the
state convention of the American Le
cion to be held here earlv in Anril.
Local business men are working for I position in so exclusive a magazine
the success of the conclave and thel and so remarKaoie a siory, so un-
various committees of the Twin Falls
Legion are doing their best In making
arrangements.
It is expected that fully 500 people
will attend. Representatives from
approximately 100 posts throughout
the state are planning to be present
and many of the men will bring their
wives.
Leader Guilty of Trying
Obstruct Enlistment.
to
ALVENSLEBEN IS PAROLED
TEITO.MC FIXAXCIAL MAC
XATE CONDITIONALLY FREED.
Return' to Germany Not Required
as Condition of Release From
Internment Camp.
SALT LAKE, March 6. Alvo von
Alvensleben. fcernian financial baron
of the Pacific northwest before the
world war and interned at Fort Doug
las here since May, 1917, was granted
a conditional parole today and it is
expected he will leave for Seattle
soon to gather together what may re
main of the fortune he had invested
in mines and timber lands in that
region.
It is not believed he will return to
Germany, as this was not stipulated
in the parole conditions.
During the world war, von Alven
sleben is claimed to have been an ac
tive agent against Canada. He was a
former lieutenant in the German
army but left that country because
of a quarrel with a superior officer.
His claims that he is a cousin of the
ex-kaiser have never been proved, but
it is believed much of the money he
invested in the northwest was fur;
nished by the former monarch.
raged in the underground workings
at the Girard Mammoth colliery at
Raven Run, Pa., for 15 years is now
under control. The burning area will
soon be opened ,up and hundreds of
thousands of tons of anthracite will
be reclaimed.
HONOLULU MAYOR DEAD
Hawaiian Started as Stevedore and
Rose to High Place.
HONOLULU, T. H., March 6. (Spe
cial.) Joseph J. Fern, a Hawaiian
who rose from a stevedore on- the
water front to the position of mayor
of Honolulu, died here on February
20 from pneumonia. He was Hono
lulu's first mayor in 1910 when the
town became a city and he held the
position with the exception of two
years until the day of his death.
He was born on the island of Hawaii
and came as a boy to Honolulu. From
a stevedore's job he graduated into
that of a shipping master. He was
married three times and leaves a
family of 14 children. His successor
has not yet been chosen although
Supervisor Jonak Kumalae, manufac
turer of ukueleles. is looked upon as
the most likely candidate.
Fern was one of the few big Ha
waiian men of affairs who had never
visited the mainland.
some of the Russian radicals recently
rounded up by the department of Jus
tice, that he be permitted to transport
them to Russia, have been disapproved
by the department of labor.
The department's decision, it was
said today, officially, was based on
the fact-that aliens who depart vol
untarily can return to this country
at any time without hindrance from
this government, but if deported they
are subject to arrest and imprison
ment if thVy attempt to return.
6. A H. Green Stamps tor ea-ih.
Hoiman Fuel Co. Main 863- Sta-IL
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Fifteen-Year Fire Checked.
SHENANDOAH, Pa., March 6. An
nouncement was made today that
officials believe the fire which, has
VOLUNTARYEXIT DENIED
Reds to Be Deported to Have' "o
ChaDcc to Return.
WASHINGTON, March 6. Proposals
mad' by Charles Recht, counsel for
TODAY
MONDAY
TUESDAY
If It's Faat
Action You
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to Miss This
NOW
DCLUTH. March 6. Jack Carney,
alleged radical leader, was today sen
tenced to two years in the federal
High School Debate Abandoned.
HOOD RIVER, Or.. March . (Spe
cial.) Illness of students and Miss
Evangeline Husband, English teacher
of the hirrh school, who has been
quarantined for scarlet fever, has ne
cessitated Hood River forfeiting- a de
bate with The Dalles high school.
Miss Husband was in charge of the
drilling of students in tryouts for'the
debate.
Carney was found guilty by a fed
eral jury of having attempted to ob
struct enlistments during the time of
war.
Elks Plan. New Building.
MEDFORD, Or., March C. (Spe
cial.) The local Elks lodge has
grown so rapidly the past year that
at the last meeting it was decided
to put up a J7000 extension at once.
This new extension will be used prin
cipally as a restaurant In the past
year over S00 new members were
taken In. making a total membership
of approximately 800. believed to be
the largest Elks' organization within
a "radius of 300 miles.
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"CALIBREfj 38"
WITH
MITCHEll
LEWIS
A thrilling romance of the
great western cattle country.
An amazing combination of
mystery, love, thrills, suspense.
at the Wurlityer ren
ders a dramatic, musical
interpretation for this
soul-stirring play.
SUNDAY CONCERT
1 :30 P. M.
PROGRAMME:
"William Tell"
Overture.. Rossini
"Venetian Moon"
Goldberg
"Lorraine March"
... . : Ganne
"Caprice Viennois"
Kreisler
it
' l i ! '
Goldberg , yiV"": j
i&S "Lorraine March" ' ,.
swai an r; , EJs-Iai- : it i
&&STmE&M - ... ' VMM
NOW
PLAYING
A stirring tale of the
Northwest Mounted Tolicc.
Imagine the girl of your
heart kidnaped and held
in bondage by a band of
Chinese smugglers." What
would you do against all
odds? ' Would you crash
through 4 flours on horse
back as Sergeant Tin did?
Tense Gripping -Dramatic
Pathe News and Comedy
5
h-.i-iw;i ... , .,v..
X r.
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