After her father died suddenly in 1955, she was raised by her mother who supported them by working as a health inspector.
Later that year, she left Adelaide for Canberra, to accept a PhD scholarship in Pacific History at the Australian National University (AUN).
She was teaching at La Trobe University "during the great days of the Melbourne 'ethnographic history' school of which she was an enthusiastic member.
Even after her retirement, she continued to advise doctoral candidates and mentor younger colleagues and students.
[1] She was able to conduct only limited research during the early years of her career because of her teaching and parental responsibilities, although she did "publish a seminal article on Pacific leadership and original perspectives on fighting and religious encounters in New Caledonia and Vanuatu.