Memories and Dreams is a regional and local history. It is also a woman’s story. It traces the journey of  Belfast-born immigrant Mary Kirkpatrick (nee Magee) to Ultimo, Sydney to Armidale and then to the Macleay Valley. Nurse Mary Kirkpatrick (1862-1943) was the first trained midwife and established the first private maternity hospital in the town of Kempsey. She walked her midwifery beat for more than forty years, literally trudging daily the streets and lanes of Kempsey and its hinterland. This is a story of women’s business, of midwifery; more than thirty women practised midwifery between 1900 and 1930 in Kempsey. Nurse Kirkpatrick knew all of these women, she worked with them, was friends and colleagues with most of them, competed with them, shared resources and often her home with them (including Matron Mary Gulliford, Nurse Adelaide (Cook) McCarthy, Nurse Martha Norman, Nurse Agnes Rickerby, Nurse Una (Tessier) Jemesen, Sister Phyllis Tyrell, sister Eva Hodgson, Dr Brabazon Casement and Catherine Ramsay). This is a woman’s story, and how women survived independently in country towns. 

Noeline Kyle is the great granddaughter of Nurse Mary Kirkpatrick. Her mother Kathleen, her aunts Lorna and Jean, and uncle Slim Dusty (David Gordon Kirkpatrick) are grandchildren of Mary Kirkpatrick.