 She spent most of her formative years in a Presbyterian lodging in Mapoon, rarely seeing her father, Philip, who was an evangelist for aboriginal people.On 29 August 1933, she married sailor Gilbert Jimmy; they relocated to Thursday Island after World War II.She later protested the leasing of a significant area of the Mapoon Reserve to mining, before being forcibly removed along with other fellow Aborigines to New Mapoon, Queensland.