1933 NEWS ARTICLE FROM ELBERT BEDE
“OPAL HAD DIARY AS A SMALL CHILD”
Here is a newspaper article, written in 1933 by Elbert Bede where he say he has “definitely established” that Opal wrote a diary as a small child, and it was torn up. Elbert Bede was Opal’s strongest critic. However, here he says that two people, a man and a woman, saw Opal’s original diary written with crayons on scraps of paper. Some critics charge that Opal did not start keeping a diary until she was 12 or 14. This article shows she did keep a diary like that she showed the Atlantic Monthly.
Cottage Grove Sentinel October 12, 1933 by Elbert Bede
New Sources of Information Open
“Since I wrote a decade ago what I thought would be the last of importance I should ever write on this subject, a source of information then closed to me, one where I knew information was to be had, has been unexpectedly opened. As a result, I have at last reached a person who actually saw Opal’s child diary, for the first time definitely establishing the fact that Opal had one that was produced at the time in her life that she claimed was written the one that she presented to Atlantic Monthly.
Heretofore, every lead to one who had seen it resulted in the information that Opal had spoken of such a diary or that she had read to someone out of what she said was her diary. Also, every lead was to a diary written, not printed. Also, these portions of the diary were in composition books or in tablets supplied by the father.
But now I have found one who saw a portion of a printed diary. Also, it was on pieces of wrapping paper and other scraps. Also, it had been torn into bits and was kept in a cardboard box, the nucleus possibly for the diary years later rushed from Los Angeles to Boston.
Child Diary is Seen
As corroborative evidence that the statement of this person is beyond being disputed, another person who until a few days ago had refused to discuss the Opal Whiteley mystery with me or anyone else, made the statement that he believed that Opal had such a cardboard box at a certain place at a certain time, and that this box contained the tattered diary. He asked that I confirm this by the person who did confirm it in exact detail.
Except that I have from one in whom I have the most implicit confidence testimony that she saw the tattered remains of a portion of the child diary, I should doubt whether any portion of it was ever written as a child.”