Elsa Dunn, 83, died peacefully on Dec. 26, 2014, in hospice at home in Tuscon, Ariz., after a brief illness.
Elsa was born in Kansas City, Mo., the daughter of Abe and Ray Brook Levine. She spent her early years in a busy household not unlike so many during the Great Depression. Doing whatever they could to keep the family shoe store open in downtown Kansas City, she often helped her mother cook supper on the stove in the back of the store. Floyd Dunn and Elsa were introduced not long after Floyd’s service in World War II. Elsa’s Aunt Minnie, who seated them together at family wedding, had exclaimed, “They are both crazy. Maybe they will talk to each other.” Aunt Minnie was right, and the conversation continued for more than 64 years.
Always helping and caring for others, Elsa typed Floyd’s Ph.D. thesis not once but twice on a small portable typewriter. She nurtured dozens of young women during her years as a leader of Girl Scouts in Champaign, Ill. And she read to her children Roo and Andi daily when they walked home for lunch from elementary school.
Elsa believed in the democratic ideal that an informed electorate will guide a progressive government. Through much of her life she carried in her purse a worn and well-read copy of the Constitution.
During several summers in the mid-1960s, Elsa drove solo from Illinois to Wyoming to take the kids camping. Garnering more than a few glances, she fearlessly rumbled across the plains in an un-air-conditioned Land Rover with two small children, a load of camping gear and a tow chain just in case. After raising two children, she returned to school to complete her college studies. She did so with flying colors, receiving her bachelor’s degree in 1982 — the same year as her son, Roo. In 1984 she acquired her first Mac computer before the advent of email and the Web.
Elsa and Floyd shared an interest in travel, and she frequently accompanied him to meetings or on sabbatical. On their numerous trips to Japan she developed an interest in the language, cuisine and Kokeshi. Over a period of 30 years, she amassed a noted collection of painted wooden dolls. Her love of cooking and food began in their tiny student-staff apartment at the University of Illinois in the 1950s and continued the rest of her life. Like her artwork, food was a language and an expression of her ability and passion. Elsa always maintained a warm home whether living in Great Britain, America or Japan.
Elsa and Floyd moved to Tucson in 1996 shortly after Floyd’s retirement as director of the Bioacoustics Research Laboratory in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Floyd and Elsa are members of the Willed Body Program at University of Arizona College of Medicine. As a whole body donor she will, as the program director commented, “be teaching for years to come.”
Elsa is survived by Floyd Dunn, her husband of 64 years. She is also survived by her children Andi Dunn of Oak Park, Ill., Roo Dunn of Bath, Maine, and their families.
Friends are encouraged to make contributions to the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona at www.communityfoodbank.com/donate or by calling 520-622-0525.