[1][2] Elizabeth Freeth was educated at Perth College in Mount Lawley, Western Australia, where she was swimming champion in 1934.
[4] She went on to gain a diploma from the Australasian College of Physical Education in Sydney,[2] and worked as a physical education teacher at the Church of England Girls' School in Perth for three years, and then the Presbyterian Girls' College, Glen Osmond, South Australia, from 1938 to 1940.
[5][6] As well as swimming, she excelled in athletics, basketball, hockey, lifesaving and tennis, and was proficient in fencing and archery.
[7] The couple initially lived in Adelaide, South Australia, where Frank Mitchell was a lecturer at the Adelaide Teachers' College,[8] and moved to Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1946 when he was appointed professor of education at the University of Otago.
[10] At the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, she represented New Zealand in the individual women's foil.