The family lived in a large home with servants in Maryborough until Lyndon was three years old, when they relocated to Brisbane in 1902. Goff recalled an idealized version of her childhood in Maryborough as an adult. In Brisbane Goff's sister was born. In mid-1905 Goff went to spend time with Ellie in Sydney. Later that year, Lyndon returned and the family moved to Allora, Queensland. In part because Goff was often left alone as a child by parents who were "caught up in their own importance", she developed a "form of self-sufficiency and [...had an] idiosyncratic form of fantasy life", according to her biographer Valerie Lawson, often pretending to be a mother henat times for hours. Goff also wrote poetry, which her family paid little attention to. In 1906 Lyndon attended the Allora Public School. Travers Goff died at home in January 1907. Lyndon would struggle to come to terms with this fact for the next six years.