Severely handicapped through cerebral palsy, Lyn Malin did not ever attend school but spent most of her life at home in her cane wheelchair. She was the daughter of Harold Garfield Malin and Bessie Sirrell Malin. Harold's father, Sidney Malin (1851-1920), was a prominent businessman in Port Adelaide, and his father, Joshua Malin, had operated a bread-and-biscuit bakery in Port Adelaide.
Harold endured ill health for some time before his death in June 1935 at the age of 52, and Bessie returned to teaching at the Blackwood Primary School during his illness. With the help of her friend, Mrs Laura Nettell, who was a trained nurse, Bessie Malin cared for Lyn at home, and taught her to read. Lyn's speech was thick and difficult to understand, but she dictated her poems and her stories to friends and relatives who wrote them down for her.
She died of kidney failure at the Home for Incurables, eight months after her admission in September 1967.