Violet Dunbar was born on November 12, 1904 in Red Lodge, Montana. Her paternal grandparents, David and Caroline Lay, traveled in covered wagons from Missouri and settled on a homestead in the Gallatin Valley of Montana. They later moved to Red Lodge, where David Lay was the first licensed surveyor in Carbon County. Upon their divorce, Caroline Lay married Joe Simpkins and was a successful sheep and cattle rancher. Violet Dunbar's maternal grandparents, Dude and Agnes Linley, were early Red Lodge residents. Dude Linley was a mercantile owner and the postmaster of Linley (later called Luther), for whom the post station was named. Dunbar's parents, George and Dorothy Lay, were ranchers. She had two siblings, Vera and Lester. She attended a small rural school near Red Lodge. She married George Dunbar around 1924 and had her first child the following year. The couple had at least two children. They moved to Detroit, Michigan around 1926, where George was employed as a druggist. Violet Dunbar died on January 1, 2001 in Santa Cruz, California.
From the guide to the Violet Dunbar manuscript, undated, (University of Montana--Missoula Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library Archives and Special Collections)
