She spent most of her life in Calcutta, then the capital of British India (now Kolkata, West Bengal), and was fluent in the Bengali language.
[citation needed] Hana grew up in the mission in Bhowanipore, one of the Dihi Panchannagram villages then on the suburbs of the capital of the Raj.
Living in London gave her the opportunity to study at the Home and Colonial School Society, where she trained to be a teacher, and then returned to Calcutta.
[citation needed] In 1845, she married Joseph Mullens also of the LMS, who had travelled out to India on the same ship as her father.
Using her fluency in Bengali, Hana Catherine Mullens was head of a girls' boarding school, and taught Bible classes to women.
Shortly after the conference, she persuaded the widow of a Hindu doctor to accommodate zenana teaching in her home, and then negotiated other similar arrangements.