Emeline R. Dorman (b. Field) (1822-1905) was born in Webster, Massachusetts, and died in Somerville, Massachusetts. As a child she moved to Worcester, Massachusetts. There she married Sewall Barnes, Jr., a chairmaker, in 1845, but he died just one year later. In 1848 she married Lathrop Dorman, a shoemaker and later a wholesale liquor dealer, and they continued to reside in Worcester until around 1890, when they moved to Winthrop, Massachusetts. After her husband's death in 1894, Dorman moved to Somerville, where she remained for the rest of her life. In July 1886 she became a charter member of the Students Christian Scientist Association of Worcester No. 8, along with her son, Albert B. Dorman. He was a student of Mary Baker Eddy's, a member of the Christian Scientist Association and the Church of Christ (Scientist), and an organizer of the Worcester Metaphysical Institute but left the Christian Science movement in 1889.

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