Death Of Rev. John

Gilkison

REV. John Gilkison, of the LMS, Mailu, Papua, died of blackwater fever, on February 7, three days after his wife and daughter had left Papua for New Zealand. Mr. Maurice Nixon, of the Fife Bay station, arrived after the attack had begun, but all efforts to save the young missionary’s life were in vain. He was buried at Iruna, where he and his wife had plan ned to build the new head-station. Mr.

Gilkison was born in New Zealand in 1913, studied at Otago University, and trained at Trinity Theological College, Auckland. He was appointed by the LMS to Papua in 1938, and in 1939 he mar ried Miss Ngarie Mill, of Samoa.

Three former nurses of the Methodist mission’s field staff. Misses H. Muir and A. Pitty (of the Salamo Hospital. Papua), and Miss D. Coltheart (Rabaul, TNG) now are serving at the NSW Govern ment’s half-caste aborigines’ home at Cootamundra.