Opal Whiteley - Biography

Biography

Whiteley claimed to be the daughter of Henri, Prince of Orléans, who died unmarried in 1901. According to Whiteley, she was taken to Oregon in 1904 and brought to a lumber camp where she was adopted by Ed and Lizzie Whiteley. While Opal Whiteley used several names during her lifetime, the one she preferred and was later buried under was Françoise Marie de Bourbon-Orléans.

Family members claim that Opal was born in Colton, Washington, the first of five children. In 1903, after having spent almost a year in Wendling, Oregon, the Whiteley family moved to Walden, Oregon, near the town of Cottage Grove. Whiteley grew up in small towns near various lumber camps, usually in poverty.

Whiteley claimed (and her grandmother Acseh Smith concurred) that Whiteley's mother often disciplined her with severe corporal punishment. Whiteley's diary includes many accounts of punishment by "the mamma". The negative portrait of her mother caused Whiteley to become estranged from her family, particularly since the other children claimed they were never abused. The controversy may have contributed to the effort to discredit Whiteley's narrative as a hoax since it was considered disloyal for grown children to question their parents' right to have disciplined them, however severely.

Biographers have confirmed that at an early age, Whiteley was a noted amateur naturalist and a child prodigy who was able to memorize and categorize vast amounts of information on plants and animals. One of her schoolteachers, Lily Black, felt that Whiteley was a genius; she was two grades ahead of her age in school, and Black took advantage of the then-new interlibrary loan system to get books for Whiteley from the Oregon State Library. In 1915 newspaper editor Elbert Bede began a series of articles in The Oregonian about her filled with glowing praise.

When she attended university in 1916, Whiteley was still living at home. When her mother and grandfather died, she moved out and began supporting herself solely through her lectures.

Whiteley traveled to India in the 1920s as her supposed biological father had done: she was the guest of the Maharaja of Udaipur, and wrote several articles about India for British magazines. Her presence caused some trouble with the British government in India, especially when a local cleric fell in love with her. Leaving India, she eventually settled in London. She grew increasingly disturbed, and was often in dire poverty.

Whiteley suffered a head injury during the bombing of London, and soon thereafter was committed to Napsbury psychiatric hospital. Whiteley was known to the staff of Napsbury as "the Princess", and visitors remarked that she actually behaved like one. Whiteley remained at Napbury until her death. She was buried at Highgate Cemetery, where her gravestone bears both her names with the inscription "I spake as a child".