Elizabeth's father was posted to Tenom where there were no educational facilities, so Elizabeth and her siblings were sent to Kudat where her paternal grandfather ran a village school, teaching Chinese. She furthered her education at at St Monica's School between 1921 to 1929, an Anglican missionary boarding school in Sandakan. Because the teachers couldn't pronounce chinese names, she named herself Elizabeth. In 1925, she and her aunt Jessie became the first girls to sign up at North Borneo's inaugural Girl Guides Company. By 1927, she was already teaching the lower standards even whilst she was still studying.