Kate was born, raised, and continues to live on Bundjalung Country, near Lismore, in northern NSW. She descends from settler-ancestors who, within living memory, were convicts, small-farmers, mid-wives, mothers, coal miners and itinerant labourers, of Irish, Welsh and English descent.
‘My love of story was felt from a young age and influenced by many, including my Irish-descent grandmother who loved to narrate the story of her clan, as she termed her extended family, each time we flicked through her small, but treasured, photo album.’
Before working as a freelance professional historian and curator, Kate studied undergraduate history at Sydney University. She completed Honours and a PhD in history at the University of New England, Armidale. Kate’s cultural background, rural upbringing, and her work researching the everyday lives of ordinary people, from small places and communities, has shaped her passion for regional history and stories.
Kate believes regional collections add enormous value to the work of historians, who tend to favour working with documentary evidence to understand the past, and ourselves.