She was the last of ten children and her elder sister Ethel became a notable physician and pathologist.

She left what is now Maitland Grossmann High School with a scholarship to qualify as a teacher at the University of Sydney.

[2] After university she joined the Department of Education and she gave talks and later radio broadcasts.

In 1941 she joined the Australian Women's Army Service and in 1942 she became Major Lorna Byne in 1942 when she was an assistant controller and 2nd in command to Sybil Irving[2] who had founded the AWAS.

[3] On 27 May 1943 she received the salute as she left headquarters in Melbourne to take up the command in Western Australia.