A pioneering local woman doctor – with whom she has a strong personal family connection – is the fascinating subject of Pauline Kuhner’s latest book on the inspiring country medico Dr Lily Holt-MacCrimmon.

Pauline will reveal Lily’s amazing story, which she's been labouring over for years, at Dubbo and District Family History Society’s 'Share Your Story' event next Friday.

“The book has been about a decade in the making; the more I researched her, I became intrigued,” Pauline admitted. “The more I found out, I became aware of what an amazing pioneer she was in medicine.”

An Australian by birth, Lily’s story as detailed in Pauline’s work 'Almost Forgotten: The life of Dr Lily Holt-MacCrimmon', involved her starting study in medicine at university in Melbourne in 1900, before moving to Edinburgh, Scotland, where she finally graduated.

“Probably because she was a woman, she actually trained at one of the extra-mural medical schools of the time, and graduated in 1908,” Pauline said. “She then came back to Australia with her husband, and they ended up in the Solomon Islands.”

This involved Lily as her husband’s timber company in-house doctor, but this was not her only work in the isolated communities of the islands.

“They spent 14 years there, and she provided medical care for the locals as well; can you imagine what the conditions were like?” Pauline pondered.

With her husband’s position ending during the height of the Great Depression in 1931, they came back to Australia with their youngest and where their older children were already at school.

“They bought a little practice at Mendooran, but the Warren doctors only wanted her to accept children and women as patients, they were the rules at the time for female doctors,” Pauline explained. “However the local community embraced her and her family, they were just so grateful.”

Dr Lily, Pauline argues in her work, was a practical, committed, and empathetic doctor who herself, though not a particularly adventurous person, nevertheless lived a highly adventurous life.

“She was a very mild-mannered but strong woman with a community ethic and commitment in all that she did. Her story is beyond unbelievable,” Pauline said.

With her husband and four young children, they called Mendooran home for four years with the oldest boarding at the Anglican hostels so they could attend Dubbo High School.

Dr Lily's untimely death in 1935, however, left her husband bereft, and he packed up his family and returned to his native Scotland.

And the “strong personal family connection” that Pauline has with this amazing woman?

“Dr Lily delivered my own father Barry McDonald at the Mendooran CWA Hospital, way back in 1933!”

Pauline is the guest speaker at Dubbo and District Family History Society’s next Share Your Story event on Friday afternoon, October 17, in the Drama Room at the Western Plains Cultural Centre. Contact the Society for more details, including how to book to attend this event.