Editor’s note: With March being Women’s History Month, the following is provided by the Clearfield County Historical Society on Grampian native and author / journalist Nora Waln. (pictured with George Scott, The Progress editor.)

Renowned author and journalist Nora Waln was born June 4, 1895, in Grampian. Her international travels support her credentials as a journalist, reporter and writer. Nora was the eldest child of Thomas Lincoln and Lillia Wall. She was raised in Grampian with her three brothers and three sisters, later in life she used the original spelling of Waln as a surname. Her Quaker family was part of Grampian’s Religious Society of Friends. Nora had an excellent home-based teacher in her father who, as a writer, published Clearfield County Past & Present in 1925. She overcame early anxieties about school and graduated from Clearfield High School in 1914.

That same year Nora took a job with The Progress, then Clearfield County’s newest newspaper, a connection that would last until the end of her long career. She went on to attend Swarthmore College, a suburban Philadelphia School, administered by the Society of Friends. At Swarthmore she continued writing and submitting articles and even writing a book titled Ravished Armenia. While there she was contacted by a Chinese family that had business connections with a Waln ancestor. The Lin Yan Ken family was looking for a Waln relative and later she was invited to China as a guest of the Lin family. She stayed on the 650-year-old homestead compound from 1920 until 1932 where she studied ancestral Chinese traditions and languages. While in China she also met her husband George Edward Osland-Hill, who she called Ted, a British Foreign Service Officer. Nora and Ted left China in 1934, when he took a Foreign Service position in Germany.

From 1934 to 1938, Nora and Ted traveled throughout Germany, during their travels Nora kept a journal that would eventually become a bestselling book titled Reaching for the Stars. The book was confiscated by infamous Nazi Heinrich Himmler, and in August 1939 she was forced to bargain for its return. Himmler refused her demands and cruelly told her she had only “dreamed” she wrote it. Nora and Ted soon left for Britain and there she rewrote the book from memory and sent Himmler an inscribed copy saying she “dreamed another dream.”

After WWII, Nora focused on heading fundraising efforts to feed, house and clothe children in Germany and occupied nations. In 1946 she began a U.S. Speaking tour to raise funds and give her impressions on the post war world. On March 18, 1946, she spoke at Schwab Auditorium on Penn State University’s main campus and her speech was covered by Progress reporter Betty Hamilton.

Another assignment sent Nora back to the Far East, in 1947 she was assigned to General Douglas McArthur’s Tokyo headquarters with the U.S. Army of occupation from 1947 to 1951. She also covered fighting in Korea, narrowly avoiding capture near the Manchurian border. She and Ted returned to the U.S. in 1951, settling in Philadelphia. She continued writing and in 1956 was named a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania.

In 1960, Nora struck up a friendship and professional bond with The Progress editor George Scott and publisher W.K. Ulrich. Soon after she was assigned to Berlin, where tensions were high surrounding East and West Berlin and the construction of the notorious Berlin Wall. Nora provided pictures and four articles as a special correspondent for The Progress, during her time in Berlin. The articles began on Oct. 20, 1961, with the final installment appearing Nov. 4, 1961.

Nora, residing near Malaga, Spain, suffered a heart attack at the home of friends in Madrid, passing away suddenly on Sept. 27, 1964, at the age of 69. She is interred in the British Cemetery in Madrid.