Her father worked for a European trading firm and later taught Burmese and Pali at St. Paul's School for Boys (now BEHS No.

When Than E was 13, her father suffered a stroke from stress and strain of unsuccessfully prospecting for tin and wolfram minerals in the malaria infested Tenasserim Division (now Taninthayi Region).

After her graduation from the Judson College, Than E taught English to 9th and 10th standard students at Cushing High School in Rangoon.

After two years of teaching she applied for a state scholarship and was selected to go to the Institute of Education at University College London.

The portrait painted by Gerald Kelly was titled "Sao Ohn Kya" and was reproduced in prints and sold.

Many Burmese landowners lost their farms to foreign creditors and, moreover, European plantations and mining operations were closed down.

The next year, she got a teaching job at the Teachers' Training College of the Rangoon University (now Yangon Institute of Education).

One day, Tommy Thaung Tin came with a proposal that she sing a Burmese song for a recording to be made by his good friend, Nyi Pu of the A-One Motion Picture Company.

She agreed to the terms and recorded a large number of songs written by Shwe Daing Nyunt.

[7] In the Burma Campaign, Japanese Fifteenth Army launched in an attack into Tenasserim Division (now Thaninthayi Region) in January 1942.

Than E joined the Women's Auxiliary Service (Burma) (known as WAS(B)), where she was in the motor unit and drove a jeep for officers on official duty.

At the last minute, the high command decided the WAS(B) unit would leave for India on the latest troop ship that brought in reinforcements.

[6] During the closing months of 1944, as the Burmese community in New Delhi started to think of returning to Burma, Than E received an offer from the United States Office of War Information (the predecessor of the Voice of America), which coordinated the release of war news for domestic purposes and had launched a large scale information campaign abroad.

[8][9] At the end of the mission, Bogyoke gave a reception to his English hosts, members of parliament of both parties, journalists, friends of Burma and the Burmese group.

Tin Tut was assassinated in September 1948 and Than E struggled to find work before being offered a role by the UN Personnel Officer.

While she was posted in Algiers, Aung San Suu Kyi visited and stayed with her on her summer vacation from her study at St Hugh's College, Oxford.

When Aung San Suu Kyi worked at the United Nations at the suggestion of Than E, she stayed with Than E for three years, calling her "Auntie Dora" and would refer to her as "my emergency aunt".

[6] At the end of the memorial service to the remembrance and thanksgiving of her life, her signature song "Hlay Ka Lay Ko Hlaw Myi" on YouTube[11] was played.