A guess at a minor Fortean.
Uncharacteristically, Tiffany Thayer gave a full name, and the material he sent in marks him as likely coming from Michigan. And from public records I could only find a single match.
Harley Clive Waitman was born 21 May 1891 in Shelby, Ohio, to George and Eliza Waitman. The Waitmans were a large farm family: Harley was the eldest of ten children. By 1917, when he filled out his World War I registration card, Waitman was married with two sons, a teacher living in Lima, Ohio. Ten years later, he was living with his brother in Michigan. Bessie, his wife, had passed; neither of his sons were listed as living there according to the census. He was working as an accountant for an automobile company. At some point, he’d gone to college for two years. Another ten years, and he’d remarried. The 1940 captured him living in Monroe, Michigan, still working as an accountant, wed to Olga, and living with his divorced sister-in-law and her two young daughters. He seems to have retired sometime in the next two years: at least, he wrote on his World War II registration card that he had no employer, and no place of employment.
Uncharacteristically, Tiffany Thayer gave a full name, and the material he sent in marks him as likely coming from Michigan. And from public records I could only find a single match.
Harley Clive Waitman was born 21 May 1891 in Shelby, Ohio, to George and Eliza Waitman. The Waitmans were a large farm family: Harley was the eldest of ten children. By 1917, when he filled out his World War I registration card, Waitman was married with two sons, a teacher living in Lima, Ohio. Ten years later, he was living with his brother in Michigan. Bessie, his wife, had passed; neither of his sons were listed as living there according to the census. He was working as an accountant for an automobile company. At some point, he’d gone to college for two years. Another ten years, and he’d remarried. The 1940 captured him living in Monroe, Michigan, still working as an accountant, wed to Olga, and living with his divorced sister-in-law and her two young daughters. He seems to have retired sometime in the next two years: at least, he wrote on his World War II registration card that he had no employer, and no place of employment.
More probably, he seems to have gone into business on his own, His obituary has him as president of the Vermillion Bay Land Company of New Orleans. His name appears in a number of legal documents from the 1940s, having to do with corporations suing each other. In all of these, he was listed as Harley C. Waitman—which is the name Thayer used to refer to him in the pages of Doubt. Waitman died 27 April 1952 at St. Vincent Hospital in Toledo, Ohio. Apparently, he was visiting a brother at the time. He left behind Olga, his two sons, six siblings (two had died before him), and four grandchildren. The funeral was held in Monroe, Michigan.
How Waitman came to Forteanism is not known, nor is it possible to suss out the nature of his Forteanism: there is just not enough information on him, or his activities. His name only appeared twice in Doubt. The first was in Doubt 12, the second in Doubt 13 (summer and winter 1945). Ironically, Thayer called him “a new member but a good one” in Doubt 13, with Waitman’s name never again showing up. The comment at least dates his membership around the early 1945. That was around the time that Holt reprinted Fort’s books, which suggests that Waitman may have been introduced to Fort around that time and then joined the Society.
If that’s the case, then Waitman was, initially, enthusiastic. His first contribution was a clipping—datelined Michigan—that had the design for the Jeep being stolen from someone in Canada. Which indicates that Waitman was interested in corporate malfeasance rather than scientific anomalies. His second contribution also focused on the stealing of ideas—and shows how Waitman was a quick study. In issue 11, Thayer had written about the maverick mapmaker BJS Cahill. In issue 13, Waitman was writing in to note that some professors from Wayne State University had, in February 1945, been featured in the Detroit Free Press, credited for making an extremely similar map. Both Waitman and Thayer wrote the professors, who denied any knowledge of Cahill.
And that was it—the last time Waitman appeared in Doubt. All we can say is that he seemed alert to the possibility of stealing intellectual property. Why he joined—why he left—I don’t know?
How Waitman came to Forteanism is not known, nor is it possible to suss out the nature of his Forteanism: there is just not enough information on him, or his activities. His name only appeared twice in Doubt. The first was in Doubt 12, the second in Doubt 13 (summer and winter 1945). Ironically, Thayer called him “a new member but a good one” in Doubt 13, with Waitman’s name never again showing up. The comment at least dates his membership around the early 1945. That was around the time that Holt reprinted Fort’s books, which suggests that Waitman may have been introduced to Fort around that time and then joined the Society.
If that’s the case, then Waitman was, initially, enthusiastic. His first contribution was a clipping—datelined Michigan—that had the design for the Jeep being stolen from someone in Canada. Which indicates that Waitman was interested in corporate malfeasance rather than scientific anomalies. His second contribution also focused on the stealing of ideas—and shows how Waitman was a quick study. In issue 11, Thayer had written about the maverick mapmaker BJS Cahill. In issue 13, Waitman was writing in to note that some professors from Wayne State University had, in February 1945, been featured in the Detroit Free Press, credited for making an extremely similar map. Both Waitman and Thayer wrote the professors, who denied any knowledge of Cahill.
And that was it—the last time Waitman appeared in Doubt. All we can say is that he seemed alert to the possibility of stealing intellectual property. Why he joined—why he left—I don’t know?
