Mischke arrived at Ellis Island with her family in 1913. They settled in Chicago, Illinois, joining her father who had come to the United States five years previously. Mischke attended parochial schools through eighth grade, then, at age fourteen, left to work first as a baste puller in the tailor shop where her father worked, and then in a glove factory. She took evening business courses and had a series of office jobs, among them work for a patent-medicine manufacturer. She also worked for the Polish National Alliance until her marriage. She was active in a local Polish singing group, "Chor Warszawski," in the Holy Trinity Parish Literary Circle, and in the Holy Trinity church choir.