Kate's Notes: There was a photo accompanying the original article. I have also added one additional news item regarding a talk given by Sister Laura during a previous trip home in 1929.

From The Clearfield Progress (Clearfield, Pennsylvania) November 19,  1938 

County Woman,  Back Home
From Uncivilized West
Africa, To Speak Here
________________

   It’s a far cry from the pleasant settled life of Clearfield, Pa., to the uncivilized ways of west Africa, but “Sister Laura” Gilliland has a distinct fondness for both places.
   A native of Oak Hill, Kathaus Township, Miss Gilliland came back to Clearfield County this week to address the annual “Thank Offering” services of St. John’s Lutheran Church tomorrow (Sunday) night. The service begins at 7:30.
   “I have been in Liberia, Africa, since 1915, except for several furloughs,” said Sister Laura, “and I guess I’ve been affected by the same lure that has caused hundreds of other Westeners to return time and again to Africa.” She is a Lutheran misssionary there.
   Miss Gilliland, a daughter of the late Edward [N.] and Hannah Hertlein Gilliland, attended grade school at Oak Hill and later was graduated from Clearfield High School in the Class of 1909. From high school she went directly to the Lutheran Deaconess Training School in Baltimore.
   Her 23 years in Africa, -- years in which her nursing and teaching have had an indirect effect on all of Liberia’s 2,000,000 residents -- will give her a wealth of experience and information to pass on to tomorrow night’s audience.
   There will be unpleasant things to tell, -- about the Heart Society, whose native members use the hearts of human beings for medical ministrations; about cannibalism that still persists in obscure parts of Liberia; about the almost universal fevers and illness in this tropical climate; about the few tribes who still believe in eating the corpses of their dead; and about the sad lack of education and modern improvements.
   There is a brighter side, too, and that is the side that has led Sister Laura and scores of other missionaries of various denominations to devote their lives and efforts to “remaking” Liberia as a Christian nation.
   The country, which is roughly the size of Ohio is, peculiarly enough, the only negro republic in the world. Paganism is still the predominant faith and the principal industries are farming, rubber, palm oil and coffee.
   There are only two seasons-- the wet season and the dry season. Missionaries take from five to six grains of quinine every day to protect themselves against malarial fever and other climatic illness.
   Gradually, the missionaries, with the help of the government, have been making headway against illness and paganism -- and this is the bright side of the picture, as Sister Laura finds it.
   “During the past two or three years, we have made particular progress,” she said. “Through education and hospital care we are able to gain the confidence of the natives and thus win them to Christian ways. We try to convert the most likely natives and then have them carry the message to their fellow Liberians.”
   Sister Laura has spent most of her missionary years at Harrisburg, near the capital of Monrovia (for President Monroe of America). At present she is in charge of training native nurses and medical assistants at the Phoebe Hospital, which is part of the “American Lutheran Mission” extending through the country. There are 35 beds in the hospital and a large clinic.
   Even in missionary circles, the nearest approach to American conveniences seem to be radios and kerosene-operated refrigerators. However, through the generosity of the Alleghany Conference of the Lutheran Church (embracing Clearfiled), Miss Gilliland plans to take back with her a so-called Wincharger. Through this apparatus, 32 volts of electricity can be developed from “wind power”.
   “It will be the first machine of this type to be tried in Liberia, “ said Sister Laura, “and I am anxious to see how well it works out.”
   Sister Laura is a full-fledged nurse, having completed her nursing studies at the California Hospital in Los Angeles during a two-year furlough in 1929 and 1930. Her first studies at the deaconesss school in Baltimore consisted of Bible courses, some nursing, church history, etc.
   After her graduation from deaconess school, she served from 1913 to 1915 at the church orphanage at Springfield, Ohio, as a house mother to a group of orphan boys.
   She became interested in missionary work originally through Mrs. J. S. Larrick, wife of the Y.M.C.A. secretary in Clearfield. Mrs. Larrick had a sister who had died as a missionary in Africa.
   Miss Gilliland has five brothers and two sisters. They are: Franklin and William of Clearfield; John of Denver, Colo.; Bertram of Manchester, Conn., Ralph of the Philippine Islands; Mrs. Bernice Barger of Sewickley, Pa., and Mrs. A. J. Jones of Jersey Shore.
   She expects to return to Africa next summer.
   An interesting feature of tomorrow’s service will be a vocal solo by Miss Mary Rothrock, under whom Sister Laura studied nursing at Lankenau Hosptial, Philadelphia. Miss Rothrock and Sister Laura are old friends. There will be a special number by the choir also.

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From The Clearfield Progress (Clearfield, Pennsylvania) 
September 24, 1929 
Sister Laura Gilliland 
To Speak At Karthaus

   Sister Laura Gilliland, who for some time was a missionary at Monrovia, Africa, will be at the Karthaus Lutheran Mission, Wednesday evening at 8 o'clock, at which time she will relate to her home people some of her work and achievements in the mission field. Films will be used to illustrate her message, which promises to be very interesting.
   Sister Gilliland is a former resident of Karthaus, and at that time a member of this church.
   At this service you will have an opportunity of seeing the work that is being done on the mission field. Everyone is welcome.

-- transcriptions by Kate Maynard, 2010