A hobby that got out of hand
By Ronda Nelson
A first visit to the warmly inviting Orofino home of recent arrivals Richard and
Margaret Whitten begins with a tour of musical instruments, both modern and
antique, and moves on to bugs. While a mutual love of music brought them
together, it is Richard’s bug collection, “a hobby,” Margaret says, “that got
out of hand,” that has given them opportunities to see the world.
A native of Scotland, Margaret had been living in British Columbia for 15 years when she and Richard met at a Vancouver Science Teachers Convention in Canada. She was a Radiographer with a background in science, medicine and fashion design, and perhaps most importantly, music.
She had performed with the Vancouver Light Opera and various professional choral groups like the Kinghorn Choir in the United Kingdom. She is an accomplished pianist.
Richard, too, has been involved with music all his life, playing organ for church by the age of 10, and later playing various melodic percussion instruments in college. He sang solos in churches for weddings, funerals and productions of Handel’s Messiah for over 30 years. Joining the musicians union, he sang professionally in The Portland Opera for 11 years.
Within a year of that first meeting, Margaret and Richard were married. Margaret and April, her daughter from an earlier marriage, moved to Oregon to join Richard and his children, Rick and Loren.
The newly formed family enjoyed many musical activities together. The Whittens sang in several church and civic choirs, as well as singing and acting in 27 performances of The Oregon Trail Pageant. A highlight of their musical pursuits occurred when they, along with daughter Loren, traveled to New York City to sing in the opera Pamelia at Carnegie Hall.
“Aberrant behavior”
Richard began collecting bugs at age 5. Throughout his childhood he “carried a butterfly net around as if it were another appendage.” With a laugh, he says he had over a million specimens—from thousands of species--before it occurred to him that this might be considered aberrant behavior! His is the largest private collection of arthropods in the world as far as Whitten knows. He has not specialized in one particular type since they all fascinate him.
Graduating from Louisiana State University with a B.S. in Chemistry and Biology, Richard went to work for Carolina Biological Laboratories, Burlington, NC.
In 1966, Richard, with then wife Diane and son Richard, Jr. moved to Gladstone, OR, where he headed the Invertebrate Culture and Drosophila Culture Departments of Carolina Laboratories. Daughter Loren was born in Oregon.
Joining various entomological clubs, both amateur and professional, enabled Richard to continue growing his collection through trading local specimens for exotic foreign species. He, Rick and Loren often spent time collecting specimens.
As the collection grew, he received invitations to give talks and have exhibitions at various schools, state parks, the Washington Park Zoo and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. His reputation as the “Bug Man of Oregon” began to grow.
Newspapers and television stations invited him to talk about the “creepy crawlies.” His most popular display was of himself, with live tarantula spiders crawling all over him, a demonstration he provided often.
400 or so boxes of bugs
Although Margaret was aware of Richard’s interest in bugs, she was a bit unprepared for the 400 or so boxes of insects she found piled in the family room of their new home in Oregon. “My feeling was, they’ve got to get out of here. We need the space,” she said. “I admired the contents, but the question was, where were we going to put them?”
They chose to build a breezeway between the garage and the house, which soon housed 54 large Plexiglas display cases. There, a steady stream of visitors from all across the country came to learn more about the insects of the world. With Richard’s reputation as the bug man well established, and the displays in place, Margaret thought her part in the process complete.
But, with visitors often coming while Richard was at work, Margaret became frustrated by her lack of knowledge and started learning about the bugs so she could give visitors the information that would help them appreciate the significance of the creatures in the collection.
Soon she was traveling with a selection of 30-40 displays, to area schools. Dressed as a Victorian scientist, complete with pith helmet, long skirt and butterfly net, she taught the students about the bugs. Visits to garden clubs and teacher in-service were common.
She became the professional story teller of her husband’s collection, seeking to “excite and amaze the people about these creatures in the collection.” Richard, she says, rescued many “orphan” collections that needed restoration and mending.
Call of the tropics
Longtime friend, Dr. David Roubik, a biologist with the Smithsonian Institute, invited Richard to visit Panama. Prior to his trip there, Richard had visited West Africa and Mexico, but neither had prepared him for the tropical rain forests he encountered in Panama. He was smitten.
Margaret accompanied him on a subsequent trip and, fortunately for Richard, she fell in love with the tropics too. A side trip to Costa Rica nearly caused the Whittens to move “then and there,” but practicality prevailed and they returned to Oregon.
With their children grown, and in full agreement with their decision, the Whittens soon sold their home, quit their jobs and began packing up the collection. The process took months, not just for packing, but for dealing with customs issues.
Finally, in 1992, they set up their first exhibit, “Jewels of the Rain Forest” in Santo Domingo, Heredia, Costa Rica. It operated from 1992-1997 and hosted thousands of Costa Rican school children and international visitors and students.
The exhibit was shown in Grecia, San Mateao and north of Heredia in Monte de La Cruz through 2003.
It is now located in a cloud forest called Selvatura, which abuts the famous Monteverde and Santa Elena cloud forests. The location provided Richard with the ideal location for his continued exploration and digital videography and photography.
Every bug has a story
One suspects the Whittens have likely forgotten more than most of us will ever know about bugs. From bugs whose eyes are bright enough “to read by” to specimens too small for the natural eye, to those as large as the average sheet of paper, the diversity of the specimens and the information offered on each one, through Richard’s videography and photography, seems limitless.
There are beetles with two green lights for eyes. Their scientific name is pyrophorus, and they can be held and used to read by “for hours.” There are accounts of them being used by the bottleful in times past to provide light for emergency surgery in Panama when no other light was available.
Another can be used to provide “stitches” for cuts. The bug bites the wound shut and the body is removed while the head stays clamped on.
Some metallic types are used for jewelry. In New Guinea one beetle’s legs are broken off and used for fish hooks.
These are just a sampling of the stories Richard shares as he shows pictures of the collection. He points out that the appearance of most characters in science fiction movies and video games are based on these creatures from nature. “What gets me is you have all these kids growing up who live in this virtual world and watch all this stuff,” he laments, “and don’t go out in the backyard and see the real thing.”
Coming home
After 15 years in the rain forest, the Whittens' children decided it was time for Mum and Dad to come home. Daughter Loren and her husband Dieter had moved to Pierce and purchased property outside Weippe with plans to build a home. They invited Richard and Margaret to build their own home on the site.
The Whittens instead chose to settle in Orofino after finding a home “we fell in love with,” according to Margaret. As always, they are involved in music, with Richard playing the organ for various churches, accordion for a country western band, and both of them involved in the Community Choir. They have also joined a Community Band in Lewiston, along with Loren.
An added plus is the home’s location near the public library. “It blows my mind,” Richard said, “to walk over here and have everything at my fingertips.”
Not a surprising observation from a man whose wife made him stop packing books to bring back to America when he had filled box number 68! “Even the china cabinet is full of books,” Margaret said.
In the coming months the Whittens will determine the fate of their collection. “What you’re seeing here is irreplaceable,” Richard said, “and it’s so important to bring them back (to America) so they can be preserved.” A number of locations are under consideration. It is important to find a place where the collection can continue to educate and fascinate the public.
Cataloging of Richard’s extensive video library and other materials on insects will take much longer.
As they settle into Orofino in this new phase of their lives, it is obvious that music and the “hobby that got out of hand” will keep them occupied for years to come.