Quarrells' work regularly identified and recognised the skill of South Australia's early pioneers in women's sport including Australian representatives Mabel Cashmore and Evelyn Tazewell in hockey, Netballers Gwen Rankin and Lorna Ryan, Cricketers Dot Laughton and Barbara Orchard and the state's first female Olympian, swimmer Denise Norton.
Quarrell contributed a half-page column in The Advertiser from 1936 devoted entirely to women in sport; their issues, skill and achievements, often in the face of crushing societal criticism of their natural ability and their expected roles.