This is a transcription of the Mrs. L. M. Dunn biography from New Hampshire Women: A Collection of Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Daughters and Residents of the Granite State, Who are Worthy Representatives of their Sex in the Various Walks and Conditions of Life, The New Hampshire Publishing Co., Concord, NH, 1895, page 241.
Mrs. L. M. (Fife) Dunn
MRS. L. M. DUNN was born in Pembroke, daughter of Joel and Lois (Morgan) Fife. Her father had a remarkable tenor voice, and led the choir in his native town for thirty years. From him she inherited her great musical gift, possessing a grand soprano voice, which musicians will readily recall. At ten years of age she stood beside her father in church and carried the soprano, and at fourteen was one of the leading sopranos in Dr. Bouton’s church in Concord. During ex-President Bartlett’s ministry at the Franklin Street church, Manchester, she was the soprano for a term of years, and subsequently at Church Green, Dr. Dewey’s in Boston. She inherited from her mother literary and artistic tastes, and received diplomas for crayon work in three states. She studied with the most eminent vocal teachers in this country, and spent two years abroad, investigating the vocal methods there. The climax of her studies was with Madam Cappiani, unquestionably the greatest teacher in this country, whose instruction she enjoyed for three years. She has been twice married: first, to George Bradley, a son of the late Hon. Richard Bradley of Concord; and later, to Hon. James F. Dunn, of Galesburg, Ill. This was at the breaking out of the Civil War, and Mr. Dunn, being a personal friend of Governor Yates, they were invited to go down to the battlefield of Shiloh, immediately after the battle, and Mrs. Dunn was the first woman on that field. She went as a guest of Governor Yates, but the suffering of the wounded soldiers enlisted her sympathies to such a degree that she nursed them during the passage up the river to the hospitals. She was president of the Soldiers’ Aid Society, and her grand voice was heard weekly in entertainments to raise funds to send supplies to the hospitals. Since the death of Mr. Dunn, she has lived in Chicago, and is one of the noted vocal teachers in that great western metropolis.