A trained lay worker with the Catholic Church in Adelaide, Rosemary Taylor was the only Australian woman in a team sent to Vietnam by the Australian Council of Churches in 1967 to work with women and children living in refugee camps. Rosemary has lived in South-East Asia ever since, continuing to work with the poor and underprivileged. Initially, she was joined by two other South Australian women, Sister Doreen Blackett and Margaret Moses. Other Sisters of Mercy nuns assisted in the work for varying periods. At this time Rosemary and her team, working as 'Friends of All Children,' operated a series of homes for children who had been orphaned or abandoned through the Vietnam War. Prior to the fall of Saigon in 1975, she and her assistants managed to evacuate 3,000 orphan children from the city. However, fellow workers Margaret Moses and Lee Makk of Adelaide were killed, along with 150 children, when an American plane crashed during the evacuation.