Both of her parents Annie Jane (born Goudy) and James Sandes were immigrants from Ireland.

Her father was in the police and she had two elder siblings and one of them was Francis Percival Sandes who became a professor of surgery.

[2] £1600 had been found to create it after the Australian Institute of Domestic Economy had demonstrated the need with a couple of years of talks.

She taught classes in the day and in the evenings and ran all aspects of the college including establishing curriculums, building maintenance and marking examinations.

[1] She finally left in 1916 to marry and the local paper lauded her contributions to the college.