Ingrid grew up in Western Australia and went to school until age of 14. She commenced working in an office in Katanning as well as helping her parents on the farm until the age of 20. Ingrid decided to go into mission service and worked with the South Australian Outback Mission until 1927. She met and married David George William Drysdale on the 27 September 1927 at the Katanning Baptist Church. In 1957 they offered their services to the Welfare Branch in Darwin for work among the Aborigines. The Director of Welfare suggested that they should help start a welfare settlement on the Liverpool River, on the remote coast of Arnhem Land. The conditions would be primitive and the work by no means easy. They settled in quickly and were accepted by the Aborigines. Ingrid set up a medical session twice daily for those who desired treatment. She diagnosed many of the Aborigines as having leprosy. A camp named Alamaise was set up outside the settlement but close enough so that the patients could be fed and tended to daily.
In 1961, after four years in Maningrida the Drysdale's left and returned briefly for the opening of the Ingrid Drysdale Hospital. The Aboriginal community had chartered a plane to pick up the couple from Katherine and take them to the opening. Ingrid did volunteer work at the Katherine Hospital and helped with the elderly people. In 1979 she was awarded the Order of Australia Medial (OAM) for the service in the Northern Territory and Western Australia. At the age of 78 Ingrid died at the Katherine Hospital.,