Della Walker lived on Ulgandahi Island Aboriginal reserve in the Clarence River delta near Maclean, New South Wales before her family moved to Yamba. At the age of seventeen her family moved again to the Tabulam reserve west of Casino, there she worked as both domestic aid and an assistant to her husband in his seasonal farming jobs. She also became an unofficial midwife at the reserve and was involved in a number of community activities: "organisation of church services and the Djunagun dance troupe; promotion of her mother tongue, Aboriginal education, the teaching of Aboriginal Studies at regional TAFE colleges; and counselling of prisoners at the Grafton gaol." Further to these activities Walker was a "member of the Aboriginal advisory council of the College of Advanced Education in Lismore, president of the Housing Association and the local Land Council at Tabulam, a director of the Yamboora Aboriginal Corporation at Yamba, and chair of the Nungera Aboriginal Cooperative Society at Maclean." (Source: Australian Women's Register website)
