She and her friend Kate Hill were influenced by Anglican community nurse Sister Dora (Dorothy Wyndlow Pattison) in Staffordshire.
[5] Tibbits returned to South Australia in 1884 and worked for William Gardner, who requested that she become matron of the Private Hospital, Wakefield Street.
She and eight of her trained nurses signed the petition which led to the Constitutional Amendment (Adult Suffrage) Act 1894, giving South Australian women the right to vote and to stand for parliament.
[4] In 1905, Tibbits advocated for,[10][11] and was alongside Hill involved in founding, the South Australian branch of the Australasian Trained Nurses' Association at a meeting chaired by suffragist Rosetta Jane Birks.
[4] Tibbits lived for twenty years in a home called "Hatherton" on 2.75 acres at Mount Lofty,[12] where she died on 2 February 1932 after a long illness.