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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (March 21, 1920)
THE SUNDAY OTlEGOXIAX, PORTLAND, MAR,CH 21, 1920 01 STORY STILL SOME OF THE PLACES MENTIONED IN OPAL WHITELEY'S NOW FAMOUS DIARY. haps the storm which has risen may result in the presentation of this con tributory proof of this strange tale, if there is such contributory proof. Atlantic, it' would seem, owes tlfat much to its readers. Opal,lt would seem, owes that much to her many friends who maintain' that what she says is fact as far as her own belief goes. Another Question liaises,. ' 13 PERPLEXES PROBERS Investigators Encounter - Manner of Problems. PICTURE EVIDENCE CITED rhotojjraphs Seem to Disprove Con tendon of Mjf-tic Writer-Psychologist Troblng Case. Continued From First Pap. ' to the grandmother. The complexion of the children are remarkably siik nr1 the resemblance of Opal to th third child of the family Is tnougni by some to be more striking man that to the one so frequently photo , rapneu wjiii iin. front teeth of the upper jaw, a char i.-teristic brought out In pictures taken during young womanhood, are .. ..v...M,.tAl-ictit ipm)in?4n Drove fam llv ties from the Whiteley side of the fimilv. None who knew the mother presume to think for a moment that any secret woo kent from the husband or from Mrs Whiteley's own mother, still liv tt. .u- .i:..-fBt Hrto nnt stretch tinrv that far. so that if any substi tntinn Was made, it is known to the i.awa At th family still living, That much can be accepted as fact. Psyrholiglst Probes Case. In company with Dr. Conklin. pro ' ff ssor of psychology of the University of Oregon. I have visited several members of tie family, including the' father and grandmother, also many of the former chums of Opal. Dr, Conklin has made a study of hundreds of cases of foster parent fantasy and Is more than usually inte'rested in this peculiar case because it has so many ancles so different from that of any case of foster parent fantasy which he has before studied. The further the inquiry was conducted the deeper . became the mystery, but not in sinftle Instance did he- find what weined to him the minutest evidence of an attempt on the part of anyone to hide a mystery from the world. Seen separately, none told a stcry that was at divergence with that told bv others. If we presume that the story of Opal is true it necessarily follows that we say that the relatives have woven Into their lives a fantasy that has become as deeply rooted and equally . as fanciful as is this fantasy of the prodigy diarist in the event we pre sume her story not to be true. InterrKtiiis Fact Cited. Here is something that I have seen no others call attention to: In an in terview not over three years ago Opal said. "One of my earliest recollec tions is of pulling up wild flowers w hen 1 was 3 years of age and plant ing them in a bed my mother had prepared for geraniums." In the in troduction to her diary she speaks of many things which took place before the alleged adoption by the White leys. She remembers that her mother gave her the instructions often Riven cub reporters, "Always get the what, where, when, how and why." She re members that the little cabinet of drawers and the two little copy bookH trpre given her by her parents. She remembers other details of the things that took place at that time. Why, then, does she not remember what her name was before she was taken by the Whteleys? A child's name, by which it is called many times a day, which every child usually has written many times before It attains the age of 5, which such a precocious child as Opal must have been, regardless of whose daughter she is, would be likely to have writ ten hundreds of times, would bellike ly to be more deeply impressed upon the mind than the little incident about the wild flowers, than the little inci dent of walking through the fields. Facts Gives in Diary. " If th copy books referred to in the author's introduction were given Opal by her real parents for the guidance of her future life, why was there nothing in the cooks to give any clew to Opal's real name and the names of her parents? Barents in making a present of this kind as a rule insert a few loving words of presentation. It is(a fact that a trip was taken a. about the time the alleged sub stitution is said to have taken place; It is a fact that the Whiteley's came to Lane county from Washington by train at that time and the substitu tion Is said to have taken'place on a train; it is true that the diary de scribes truthfully in minutest detail many of the events in Opal's life which took place at the age between 5 and 6; is it possible that a whole family has woven a fabric of decep tion so perfect as to defy all efforts at finding a weak spot? But we can not believe this unless we believe that a child would forget, its own name while remembering things that took 'place before that name "was ' taken from it. Much, Apparently Fiction. There is so much in the diary that Is known to be fact and so much'that might be pure fiction that the .correct solution only seems further away as the investigation into the mystery progresses. The place where the road goes three ways is still there; the lane that went to. the house-oh the bill is still there; the girl "without seeing" is identified; the Sadie Me Kenzie is identified. All of these events must have taken place, if they took place at all, not over 16 years ago, yet the Jean and Larry, whom God furnished a baby on such short notice, cannot be identified; those who lived at the time and around the place where Jean and Larry are supposed to have lived can place no Euch persons, the Uncle Caleb and Bob Ryder and equally mythical per sons' so far as those who have known cvry person who ever has lived in that vicinity are able to recall. Mi- ' chael Angelo' Sanzio Raphael, the fir tree with an understanding soul, can hot be identified. Not even a stump of such a tree can be found near the old barn, which still stands. None re member such a tree. Facts and Ac tion seem strangely mixed, but one is told with the same embellishments of plausibility as the others. How much, is fact and how much is met? " Why does she not remember her i.n'rmci iiciiiic, aiiitwugn cuo iiau a I - jived at an age when it would seem that one so precocious could not so qiiickly forget something so impor tant now? Diary Hardly Complete. Why is not the story of the substi tution told in the diary, or do the references to THE mamma, THE papa. THE grandma. THE Uncle Ca leb 'nfer, that they were not of her blood? '. ; If there has been a substitution, how remarkable that at the moment of the death of a daughter another of the same age should have appeared -heariTiir all the .i liaracteri.'ttcs of V l!" of the family, one havi "r.."r.-..- precocity for writing, one k f " " -V Bastes? . ' -m? wm "JT" Top (Left) Portrait of Opal, showing the prominent front teeth, said to be a Whiteley characteristic, and (right) barn from which "out sets such sood, wide view of the world." Middle "The singing creek, where the Will lams Rrow." Below (Left) Lane where "caterplllnra anad beetles bo walking-," and (right) house once occupied by Whiteley family. - ing the same inquisitiveness for ex act details of every little event that the father remembers in the other child. On the other hand, where did those copy books, which had stich an in fluence on her life, come from? Why have they so mysteriously disap peared? Are they and their disappear ance pure fabrication? How are we to account for the fact that this fantasy, known to have existed several years ago, has been carried way past the adolescent age, when all other chil dren with a similar fantasy have dropped it? Atlantic Duped Perhaps. We who know Opal well, who know the innocently sincere way In which she tells her stories, who know of her deeply religious nature, who know of her love of God and his great out doors, who have often seen the face to which deceit and hypocrisy would seem strange companions, can easily understand why the editor of Atlantic would believe whatever may have been told him -when, as the editor himself says, he drew out the fostei parent story and the fact of. the ex istence of the diary on an occasion when their author came to see him on an entirely different mission. Plainly the author had no intent to capitalize this alleged incident in her life; plainly she had never thought of using the diary to gain the literary fame which she craved, to get inside the covers of Atlantic, a longing which every author has. In the pleas ant relations that followed while the diary was being pieced together in order that Its value as a literary doc ument might be judged, a friendship ripened, there was a mutual' meeting of minds and souls. The stage could not have been purposely and studious ly better set for the reception without question by even so scholarly a man, so expert a. judge, of human, nature, as the editor of Atlantic, of the story Opal told. The idea that Opal has hut recently Invented the foster parent theory for literary purposes is as untenable as the charge that the staid and respect able old Atlantic has done something of that sort. No person familiar with Atlantic tbinks such a piece of deceit" could come from it. None who knows Opal well doubts her sincerity in her claims. Her relatives, her father, scout such an Idea. Is it not possible that Atlantic had what it deemed more positive proof of the foster-parent claim that any presented in Opal's own introduction? bucn proof might as easily be ex plained away as some, of the other statements that seem untenable, yet ii is priyauie mat sucn proot is not only such as to explain why this fancy of Opal's, if such it is, lias re mained with her past the age when others have dropped it,' but also .suf ficient to convince Atlantic that there was no need to investigate the state ments made by one so apparently sin cere as Opal and apparently, so in capahle of deceit or hypocrisy. Per- New Evinrude For Rowboats, Canoes and Motor Boats More SpeedrMore Power riasnped to MT Reverses without stopping the motor Removable Bearing! Improved Magneto with Hotter Spark " Single and Double Cylinder 2, 3 and 4 H. P. Sizes .. 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Morrison St., Portland, Oregon ine ciaim mat so much or the diary as has been printed Is the literary effort of a child of six, there ae many in cidents to make this claim seem much more than probable. It would seem unlikely that a cliild of that age could spend so much time in writing and still keep her literary efforts hidden from her parents; it would seem unlikely thai a child of that age would be so secretive; but parent, relatives and friends remem ber "that . Opal was not an ordinary child; there are those who knew her in' her babyhood-who say she was a lery odd youngster; that at the age of six she talked like a grownup; that she had few companions. I have foufd no one who ever saw the diary, but it is remembered that the child spfnt much time in .forming words and writing. Even at thege of three the one. whom' we may. pos itively call the real Opal coui-d tell most of the letters ami could form words from a copy book. As the other children grew older they learned that Opal kept a diary., but none were per mitted to see it except as the author read to them from It. S Evidence .Not ConeluNive. ... There is. therefore, no . positive proof that the diary being printed is the one written by six-year-old Opal. but Atlantic Monthly's editor should be a good judge and he has'atcepted it as such. That page of the diary of which a fac simile has been pub lished certainly indicates the work of a child of very tender years. Be ing printed in capital letters would indicate that it was written before the child learned to make pot-hooks. and she started to school at six. Any who believe that Opal in later years, during the time she was cramming her head with her lore of the. great outdoors, took time to write 150,000 words (wlvich Atlantic says the dity contains) and in doing o to. imitate the painful and labored print of a child, to imitate the oddly mispelled words and peculiarly twisted- Kng Iish, probably is wasting time in some prosaic occupation when he should be writing the best sellers in fiction. If the diary was polished up in lat er years, why such words still re maining as "screwtineyes," "new monla," "rownd," "wood" for would, "dus" for does, and- "wus" for was, while such words as "untangle" and "silken" are correctely spelled. (To be Concluded Tomorrow.) VOTERS REGISTER SLOWLY Indications Are Total Will Be I-os Than Hundred Thousand. .With fhe closing of the registration books exactly a month away, the daily limber of registrants at the court house Is increasing, but even at the present rate will be 15.000 short of the 100,000 mark. , At present the total is 79,573. yes terday's registration beingv236 and the total for the week 1586. With 250 a day the total by April 21 will only be around 85.000, less by more than 10,000 than at the last presi dential campaign. . County Clerk Beveridge Is main taining a full force in the office in the courthouse. It is open every day, except Sundays, from 8 A. M. to 5 P. .11. .-.AH voters must register who have not voted in the past two years or who have moved from the precinct in which they last voted. 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