Nora was the third daughter of Robert Kyffin Thomas, who was on the staff of the family newspaper,
The Register and editor of the Adelaide
Observer, and his wife Amelia (Bowen). She was the great-grand-daughter of
Robert and
Mary Thomas (q.q.v.). She won a violin scholarship at the Adelaide College of Music, 1895, and was awarded the first Adelaide Conservatorium Violin Scholarship, 1898. She studied violin in Leipzig, and was a member of the Elder String Quartet in Adelaide and of the Adelaide String Quartet when it was re-established in 1917.
