 Her parents were Paulina Wilhelmina (née Berndt) and Karl Frederick Kalkstein, her father being a civil servant.When she was a teenager, "economic difficulties broke up the Kalkstein home", and she was sent to Australia to live with relatives.She arrived in Melbourne in 1869 and lived with an uncle for six months, subsequently moving to Bairnsdale, Victoria, to work as the governess for her aunt Mrs Drevermann.