[3][4] She attended Goytelea School at Southport, and later studied painting at the Brisbane Central Technical College under Godfrey Rivers.

[2] Her uncle financed a trip to New Zealand in 1902 which inspired some of her earliest exhibited works, as well as helping to set her up to study in Melbourne.

[2][6] During World War I, she travelled to London to be in proximity to her brothers and cousins who were serving with the AIF, as well as to study art when she could.

[7] Vida Lahey was one of the first female artists in Queensland and Australia, who regarded themselves as professionals and who sought to earn a living from practising their art.

Later the house was moved from the outskirts to the Canungra township on the hill above the present Catholic Church and occupied by her parents David and Jane Jemima Lahey, and then moved again by Vida and her sister Jayne Lahey in 1946 to its present block in Sir Fred Schonell Drive, St Lucia in Brisbane.