[2] In 1871 Flower was mentioned in a Select Committee report on the Aboriginal Natives, which summarised Anne Camfield's evidence saying "One girl, sent to Sydney, played for some time the harmonium in St. Philip’s Church, and gained her living by teaching...".

She was offered a teaching position at Ramahyuck Mission in Gippsland in Victoria, but the real plan seemed to have been for her to become a wife to one of Friedrich Hagenauer's favourite converts.

In 1886 the government passed legislation that forced Aboriginal people under 34 years of age with non-Aboriginal parentage (so-called 'half-castes') to leave missions.

This meant that Bessie and Adolph were separated from their family and forced to move out and live in a hostile settler community.

[2] They were ultimately allowed to return to Ramahyuck Mission, but two of their daughters were forcibly indentured as domestic servants.