She was born in Australia but spent her formative years in Europe, before returning to Sydney where she became a socialite as well as a social columnist and journalist in a number of major newspapers across Australian cities.
[2][1] After Lucy, wife of Henry Gullett, encouraged her to become a writer she secured work as a contributor to the Australian Town and Country Journal and the Illustrated London News.
[2] Aronson later returned to Sydney and from between 1903 and 1904 she worked on the monthly magazine The Home Queen, where—according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography—she was the editor but, along with the wife of Bernhard Ringrose Wise, "wrote much of it herself, including the theatrical and fashion columns".
In a September 1902 column "Thalia" consistently misspelled Franklin's surname as "Francklin" and wrote that "her personal appearance is very much against her, as she is short, insignificant looking, and has a square face implying very little character until you begin to know her" and that "she certainly does not dress to the best advantage, which is also against her, as she has practically no idea on the subject of attractiveness".
Aronson responded "although I quite believe that your sister has asked you to reply to her correspondence, I think that someone in your household might have taught you a little politeness to a lady editress" and "I feel that Miss Franklin does not know that you have written me such a cheeky letter, as I always considered her a friend of mine", though she did enquire which column Thalia wrote that gave offence.
[16] Her son, Malcolm, joined the military as a Motor Transport Driver in the Army Medical Corps and departed to fight in the First World War on 20 August 1916 on the HMAT Shropshire.
[17] In 1917, Aronson produced a well-received cookery book Twentieth Century Cooking and Home Decoration as Thalia,[2][18] and by 1918 she had started the Mary Elizabeth Tea Rooms at 60 King Street, Sydney.
[19] She continued to run the Mary Elizabeth Tea Rooms, which The Hebrew Standard of Australasia described as "the meeting-place of many of Sydney's Bohemian personalities",[20] however in 1932 she declared bankruptcy through Hungerford, Spooner & Co. and eventually paid her creditors.