She was the only child of Jessie Allen (née Bowes) and Peter Board; her father was a schoolteacher by profession who eventually became the director of the New South Wales Department of Public Instruction.
Her interest in public service was influenced by her maternal grandmother Euphemia Bridges Bowes, a suffragette and temperance activist.
[1] She later served as national president from 1942 to 1944, where she "focused on war work but with an emphasis on the issues of importance to women-treatment and pay of women in the services, postwar reconstruction (especially housing), and uniform marriage and divorce laws".
[2] As a senior figure within the more conservative NCW, Board came into conflict with Jessie Street and her left-wing Australian Women's Charter movement.
She lobbied the federal government to disregard Street's activities and accept the NCW as the representative of the majority of Australian women's organisations.
She organised lecture tours from international diabetes experts,[1] including a visit from insulin co-discoverer Charles Best in 1952.