NORWICH — In the early evening, after the construction crews working on Interstate 91 went home for the day, the horseback riders would arrive.
The hard-packed dirt that would lay the path of the highway in the 1960s gave Dianne Dunn and other riders room to gallop.
“It was a place where we knew we could really run, so we did,” said Marilyn Mason, a friend of Dunn’s, who died at 88 on Nov. 30, 2020. “We were always up for adventure.”
Dunn and her late husband, John Lawrence Dunn, moved to the Upper Valley in 1959, five years after they were married. They settled in Hanover before moving to a Norwich farm, where Dunn kept horses, and spent their later years at Kendal at Hanover.
Upon moving to the region for John’s residency at what was then Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, Dunn quickly connected with other women who owned horses. She joined the Root District Riding Club in what Suzanne Lupien described as “a little pocket of time” in Norwich history where women, often the wives of Dartmouth professors and Mary Hitchcock physicians, rode all over town, often with their children in tow.
“They were just really brave women and probably a little bit reckless,” Lupien, who grew up in Norwich and now lives in Vershire, said. “They weren’t really worrying about potential danger: They were really fully enjoying themselves with their horses and their children.”
If Dunn got knocked off a horse, she would get back on it and was more concerned for the horse’s wellbeing than her own, said her son Lance Dunn, who lives in the family’s longtime Norwich home on Union Village Road. Once, she was out riding when a horse she was riding slipped on a ledge, causing Dunn to fall and break her arm and collarbone.
“She managed to get back on the horse, somehow rode it home, fed it, watered it, made sure it was OK and then went to the hospital,” Lance Dunn said.
Dunn’s love of horses extended beyond her love of horses themselves to the way the animals could connect people in the community. Lupien, then a child, was a recipient of that generosity.
“She recognized my fervent wish to be sitting on a horse all day and she did what she could to support that,” Lupien recalled. “She was for helping everybody, but especially kids like me, who didn’t own a horse.”
Shortly after moving to the area, Roz Orford met Dunn and they quickly bonded over their mutual love of horses. Dunn also helped introduce Orford to other community members. Dunn also used her vast network to connect Orford, of Norwich, with friends of hers who had a horse they no longer needed. When Orford was looking to purchase a home, it was Dunn who found it.
“Dianne was somebody who was really wonderful at making connections with people,” Orford said.
The Dunns’ four children all learned to ride. The family kept around five horses at any given time and in the stables, a phone with a long cord helped keep her connected with people as she cared for the horses.
“She really was an ambassador for horsemanship in general,” Lance Dunn said. “If you showed up at our house, you were going to get on a horse. There was no saying no.”
Dianne, then a country girl from Ohio, and John Dunn, then a city boy from New York, met as students at the University of Pennsylvania. She asked a mutual friend to introduce them. As the story goes, at the end of their first date, he suggested they go out again next weekend.
“She said something like, ‘Why wait until the weekend?’ She always used to say I chased him until he caught me,” the couple’s daughter Amy Roy said.
She was more of an extrovert, he an introvert. They moved to Norwich so Dianne could have horses and John took joy in haying the fields, relishing in being something of a gentleman farmer. He had a love of opera; She named horses after famous performers or pieces including tenor Enrico’s Aria and Tristan, from Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde.. They regularly attended the opera together.
“I think Dad kept Mom safe and provided for her, and Mom brought family and activity and social life to Dad because he would not create those things on his own,” Roy, of Corvallis, Ore., said.
They were both deeply involved with the Norwich community from the schools to organizations throughout town. When it was time to hay the fields, they’d invite friends over to make it a celebration complete with iced tea and a swim in the Ompompanoosuc River, Mason, of Ludlow, Vt., recalled. She and Dunn would often take their children swimming in the river. While at UPenn, Dunn was a member of the synchronized swimming team, which she had a lot of pride in.
A member of the New Hampshire League of Craftsmen, Dunn made and sold pottery. If the weather was too poor to ride, Roy said, Dunn could be found making pottery or knitting.
“My Dad always said she did it to support her horsing habit,” Lance Dunn said.
She went through stages with her work, Roy said. When her kids were younger, she’d make figurines from Winnie the Pooh or Peanuts. For awhile, she made bird feeders. When she was a young teenager, Dunn would pay Roy to make macrame hangers that Dunn would use to make hanging planters. She delighted in making sets of dishes as wedding or housewarming gifts.
“My house is full of various works of hers that she gave me through the years,” Orford said. “I treasure them.”
After Dunn died, Roy was putting a dish Dunn made in the dishwasher when she paused to hold it.
“I could feel her fingers, the shape of her fingers in the pottery,” Roy said.
Dunn was also an active volunteer with Meals on Wheels and High Horses Therapeutic Riding Organization where she befriended Liz Chaud, who went on to become executive director of the organization. The tasks Dunn took on ran the gamut from painting a shed to sitting on committees to hosting the annual fundraiser and helping riders get acquainted with horses.
“She was just happy to be helpful, happy to be alive, happy to be in horses’ presence,” Chaud said. “I just wanted to be like her when she was her age.”
When Dunn moved to Kendal’s dementia wing, Mason would visit and take her out for drives on the roads they used to ride on.
“We liked to get lost,” Mason said, just like the rides on dirt roads they took in Norwich 50 years ago.
Whether it was helping out with the Norwich Pageant, introducing children to horseback riding or cooking a meal for a family in need, Dunn was always looking to form connections between people and their community.
“If she saw a need she would do something about it,” Roy said. “She set an example that way.”
Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.
