Born "illegitimately", Patricia Jean Smith was adopted by railway workers, her mother a station-mistress and her father a fettler. She lived in a number of small Victorian country towns and was educated through correspondence school. She enlisted as a nursing VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) during the Second World War, serving from 17 March 1943 to 14 July 1944. Later, she was the first female to be articled as a radio officer when she worked on an Australian merchant ship from 1954-1960. She then lived in Hobart from 1960 to 1967 where she worked as an Adult Education Officer and, in 1970, she took the position of Manuscripts Field Officer for the State Library of Victoria, a job she did until 1982.

From 1976 to 2001, she was a Member of the Board of Directors for the Royal Humane Society Australasia, and from 1983 to 2001 she was a Committee Member of the Museum of Victoria. Her Order of Australia, awarded in 1994, was made in recognition of her service to community history, particularly through the preservation of national traditions and folklore and the recording of oral histories.

While her main study of and work in oral history was carried out in Australia, Ireland, England and the USA, her research, overall, took her to over 60 countries.

Adam-Smith wrote on a wide range of subjects, but her deepest interest was Australian raliways. She contributed actively to Australia's literary community, and in 1973 she was State President of Australian Writers in Victoria and the Federal President of the Fellowship of Australian Writers.

In 1978 her book The Anzacs shared The Age Book of the Year Award and was made into a 13 part TV series.

Her autobiography was published in two parts: Hear The Train Blow and the award-winning Good-bye Girlie.