Her father was Ronald Bernard McEachern, who was a forest worker, high rigger, and camp manager, nicknamed 'Bear Tracks', and her mother was Beatrice Rosemond, née O’Flynn.
[2] After graduating, she spent a year working at the Provincial Museum of Natural History and Anthropology in Victoria, British Columbia.
[citation needed] In May 1985, she was appointed by the AIAS in an honorary capacity to establish a national Aboriginal biographical register.
She was particularly sensitive to Indigenous peoples' connection to land, and the impact of dispossession; her work stressed the importance of understanding the historical context of colonialism.
[2] In 1984, she published the journal article "Mapping the Past: An Atlas of Victorian clans, 1835–1904", which has become a major reference understanding the traditional ownership of Aboriginal land in Victoria.