Margaret Nicholl Laird
American missionary
Margaret Nicholl Laird (31 July 1897 – June 1983) was an American missionary of the Baptist Mid-Missions who worked in the French colony of Ubangi-Shari and independent Central African Republic (CAR) from 1922 until the 1960s. She was one of the founders and longest serving missionaries of the Baptist Mid-Missions in the CAR. In recognition of her service as a medical missionary and her many other activities in the CAR, Margaret was awarded the French Legion of Honor (1952), the Central African Republic Knight of the Order of Merit (1961), the Distinguished Alumni of the Year of the Women's College of Colorado (1962), and the Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial Award for the Daughters of Hadassah (1962).
Childhood and early adulthood
Born Margaret Suzanne Nicholl in Englewood, Colorado to a Finnish Lutheran mother and an Irish Episcopalian father, Margaret was baptized in the Lutheran Church three days after birth. She attended Colorado Women's College in Denver, Colorado, where she joined the Bible class of one of her teachers, Miss Jessie Robbins. On 16 September 1917, she entered Moody Bible School, from which she graduated in on 7 August 1919. She then returned to Denver to study to be a nurse in order to qualify as a medical missionary. Although offered a salary by several evangelical missionary societies, she was inspired by the example of Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, to become a faith missionary, with no regular income. With the initial financial support of the Hoover family of her church in Englewood, Colorado, Margaret decided to join Reverend William Haas who was organizing a Baptist Mid-Missions missionary group to start work in the French colony of Ubangi-Shari.
First years in Ubangi-Shari
After briefly studying French in Paris, she traveled to Ubangi-Shari and arrived in the town of Fort-Sibut in 1922, where she joined Baptist Mid-Mission missionary Rosenau. After studying the Sango language at Fort-Sibut for only four months, she was asked by the director of the mission, Mr.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6759774. VIAF identifies the subject as 171944765. The Library of Congress control number is no2011091236. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1897, 1983, 1922 and 1952.
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