 At age thirteen although barely educated herself, Callaghan became a teacher within an Aboriginal settlement in Bellbrook, New South Wales.Emma lived on this settlement for twenty-five years alongside Retta Long helping with childbirth, birth registration, and the ill. 
She was proficient in needlework and was also a translator of the Dhanggati language, the tongue of her first husband’s tribe, working with biblical tales.Her new home in Armidale was later visited by Ellen Kent Hughes.