Her older brother, Mostyn Hanger, became Chief Justice of Queensland and was knighted.
[1] She completed her secondary education at Gympie High School[2] and won a tertiary scholarship.
[4][5] Qualified with her BA, Hanger began her teaching career at Gympie High School, where her father was headmaster.
[2] While teaching at Roma High School, she was one of five teachers who went on a tour to study education in Japan, reporting that "suicides from despair at failure in the all-important examination are not at all uncommon".
[7] Nelson Burns, in his review for The Courier-Mail, wrote "An over-plus of trite verbiage cluttered the trend of the story".