[7] Following the divorce of Reeve's parents, her mother Ada married Wilfred Cotton, which made Goodie a step-cousin of the actress Lily Elsie.

[8] Reeve's parents regularly toured with their respective acts, sometimes taking Goodie and Bessie with them, including to Australia in 1898[9] and Southern Africa in 1912.

[17] Following the end of The Better 'Ole's run in 1919, Reeve spent years appearing on the Tivoli circuit in a solo show,[17] singing and played the piano,[16] including a tour of New Zealand in the 1927/28 summer,[18] and worked in the publicity department of J. C. Williamson's theatre company.

[22] Following the release of Auntie Goodie's Bedtime Story Songs, Reeve was hired to write what were the first radio musical commercials in Sydney,[23] including the famous advertising jingle "Eat Your Uncle Toby's Every Day".

[28] Thanks to her "knack of radiating her happy personality at the mike"[29] and ability to bring novel features into radio, Reeve soon become renowned as "one of the best woman announcers on the air"[30] quickly amassing "a large army of listeners".

[23] Critics praised Reeve's work on Session for the Blind, stating in her "quiet, pleasant way, has deservedly achieved some remarkable results from her cheerful little programme.

"[42] Described as "of the pale face and the experienced grey eyes, and the lips which seem to form ideas instead of words",[10] Reeve had a distant relationship with her mother, who appeared to prefer working to motherhood or family life.

[10] It was later suggested that Reeve's well known "extraordinarily sympathetic nature", partly derived from this illness and her desire to spread kindness in the world as a result,[39] including her ongoing charity work, in particular for the Royal Society for the Blind.

[46] Reeve left the Sydney run of My Lady Frayle, in which she played a leading role, at short notice, to travel to Melbourne to wed McGillicuddy.

[27] Reeve's second marriage was to Walter Geoffrey Martin, an executive with Amalgamated Wireless,[49] in St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney on 22 October 1932, followed by a honeymoon in Suva, Fiji.

[52] Up to 400 fans were outside St Mary's, throwing rose petals and mobbing Reeve, leading to near suffocations in the resulting crush and many children screaming in fright.

[57] As Reeve married Dawson only three hours after her decree nisi for divorce from her second husband Walter Martin was made absolute on 21 October 1946, there was confusion over the validity of the marriage.