Early Life
Born in Roseneath, Wellington, New Zealand in 1912, Wake was the youngest of six children. In 1914, her family moved to Sydney, Australia and settled at North Sydney. Shortly thereafter, her father, Charles Augustus Wake, returned to New Zealand, leaving her mother Ella Wake (née Rosieur; 1874–1968) to raise the children.
In Sydney, she attended the North Sydney Household Arts (Home Science) School (see North Sydney Technical High School). At the age of 16, she ran away from home and worked as a nurse. With £200 that she had inherited from an aunt, she journeyed to New York, then London where she trained herself as a journalist. In the 1930s she worked in Paris and later for Hearst newspapers as a European correspondent. She witnessed the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement, and "saw roving Nazi gangs randomly beating Jewish men and women in the streets" of Vienna.
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