Her early life and family background were poor and due to the lack of Government services and support she went without a formal education and health care for most of her childhood and early teenage ears. She worked as a fruit picker, farmhand, day labourer, coal brick vendor during this time. These experiences produced a hard-edged and self-sustainable young woman with an aching to better herself rather than continue to slide. Sharp-minded and able bodied, her potential was seen and she was taken from home and 'pressed' into service; becoming the official Stenographer of a Police posse.