She studied at the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music under Roland Foster, and had further training under Joseph Bradley and Emily Marks.

[1] She performed locally and in Queensland, and was chosen to accompany the Belgian cellist Jean Gerardy on his 1923 tour of Australasia, with encouragement from Dame Clara Butt and Henri Verbrugghen.

Her friend Browning Mummery arranged for her to make some 40 recordings with the Gramophone Company, mainly of ballads, which, along with frequent radio broadcasts, spread her fame even more.

During World War II she sang over 1,300 times in hospitals, air raid shelters, army camps and factories throughout Great Britain, and entertained Australian soldiers at her London home.

[6] The Bulletin reported in September that after finishing her interstate tour for the ABC with a matinee in Sydney Town Hall and a recital at Wollongong she gave a series of concerts in the northern coalfields commissioned by the Joint Coal Board, in which Adelaide violinist Carmel Hakendorf and pianist Geoffrey Parsons accompanied her.