Elsie Parker grew up on Brewarrina Mission. Her father was a police tracker. Parker's older brother and sisters were apprenticed out, but when her brother was never brought back, her parents moved from the mission into the town so that she could not be taken away, and Parker attended the town school in 1922. Later Parker married Robert Parker and they lived in a tent and a home made of tin cans until her husband joined the army to fight in World War Two. On his return, Robert Parker became a foundation member of the RSL in Brewarrina. After her husband passed away in 1984, Parker moved in with her youngest daughter.
(Main source: Zagar, C., Goodbye Riverbank: The Barwon-Namoi People tell their story, Magabala Books, 2000).
