For 26 years, she was a manager for the Home for Female Prisoners in Dedham, Massachusetts, and was a life member of The Bostonian Society.

She then went to the boarding-school of Miss Ela in Concord, New Hampshire, where she remained one year, after which she entered the New Hamilton Institute, known at that time as one of the best schools for girls in the country.

[5] After graduation, Miss Knowlton taught a year in the high school in Manchester, New Hampshire, then under the principalship of Amos Hadley.

[3] In 1861, the couple purchased the old estate at Uphams Corner, in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, which belonged to the Clapp family for a generation.

[5] The Captain Lemuel Clap House was situated on an elevation, and was surrounded by carefully kept lawns, with shade trees, many of which were more than 100 years old.

[3] The first public work of Dyer was on the Board of Management of the Dedham Home for Discharged Female Prisoners, to which she was appointed in 1864.

[3][4] The Boston Educational and Industrial Union in 1885 asked Dyer to take charge of an entertainment for its benefit, and she arranged a Dickens Carnival, which brought in US$7,000.

In 1888, Dyer was at the head of the Board of Managers of the fair held in the Boston Music Hall by which the sum of US$13,000 was raised in a single week for the benefit of The Home for Intemperate Women.

The committee of fifty women who had worked together under Dyer's guidance banded themselves together to raise money for any good object.

Dyer conceived the idea of starting a free hospital for women without means in need of important surgical operations.

[3] In the hall of the Woman's Charity Club Hospital was another lifelike portrait of Dyer, painted by the resident physician, Ida R.

[5] Early inclined to literary work, for which the duties that came to her left little time, Dyer wrote mainly for her clubs many essays and poems.

[5] After her husband's death in 1898, she made her home with her son and his wife in Dorchester, having her own suite of rooms, where she continued to provide hospitality to others.