Of the nearly 300 hymns written by hymnist Helen Dungan, “You Can Make the Pathway Bright,” written in collaboration with her composer husband James M. Dungan, is the only one still in use. Originally titled “If there’s Sunshine in Your Heart,” it was copyrighted in 1898, and first published in E. O. Excell’s The Gospel Hymnal for Sunday School and Church Work (1899). “You Can Make the Pathway Bright” entered Latter-day Saint hymnody in 1908, in The Songs of Zion, an unofficial collection compiled by various mission presidents throughout the United States. The following year it was included in Deseret Sunday School Songs, a similar book issued by the Church for use in the Sunday school. It was first published in the Latter-day Saint hymnal in 1948, and is still included in the current hymnal. The 1985 hymnal correctly identifies the birth and death dates of James Dungan (1851-1925), but provides no information concerning his wife, only listing for her birth and death dates “ca. 1899,” in reference to the year this hymn was first published.
Helen Louise Silcott, the second daughter of Andrew J. and Ann Silcott, was born on April 10, 1855, at Millersburg, Ohio. She attended Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio, a school affiliated with the Disciples of Christ. She afterward attended the Dana Musical Institute at Warren, Ohio, where she met her future husband, James Milton Dungan. They were married on August 4, 1875. They lived for one year in Cincinnati, Ohio, before moving to Franklin, Indiana, her husband’s hometown, where they lived until 1894. While living in Franklin she became actively involved with the W. C. T. U., and became a leader in the “woman’s work of the Christian Church.” (Evening Star, May 25, 1914)
Three children were born to the Dungans: Ada Bradshaw, born in 1877, Fred Silcott, born Jan 22,1879, and Mary Josephine “Josie,” born in 1883. Tragically, Helen Dungan outlived all her children. Ada died in 1878, while still an infant. Josie died March 26, 1891, at the age of eight. Fred grew up and became a dentist, but died unexpectedly of pneumonia on April 19, 1908.
In 1894 the Dungans moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, where Helen became interested in missionary work. In 1906 she was elected a member of the Executive Committee of the Christian Woman’s Board of Missions, and from 1910 to 1913 she served as recording secretary on this same board.
“Her musical training was exceptional and she had directed it along the writing of words for songs and she was the author of upwards of three hundred songs” (Evening Star, May 25, 1914), many of them set to music by her husband. She sometimes signed her hymns “Nellie Dungan”
Helen Dungan died of heart disease on May 24, 1914, in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was buried at Greenlawn Cemetery in Franklin, Indiana.
Biographical sources:
“Mrs. Helen Dungan, Song Writer, Dead,” Indianapolis Star, May 25, 1914, 12; “Song Writer and a Christian Woman of High Ideals Passes Away,” Evening Star (Franklin, Indiana), May 25, 1914, [1]; “Writer of 300 Hymns is Dead of Heart Disease,” Indianapolis News, May 25, 1914, 9; “Notes and News,” Missionary Tidings [Christian Woman’s Board of Missions], July 1914, 93; “Dr. Dungan is Recovering,” Indianapolis Star, April 11, 1908, 11; “Dr. Fred S. Dungan Dies at Home of His Parents,” Indianapolis News, April 20, 1908, 11; Helen Kelly Brink, The Descendants of William Kellie of Scotland (Marco Island, Fla.: H. K. Brink, 1994), 433; E.O. Excell, The Gospel Hymnal for Sunday School and Church Work (Cincinnati: Jennings & Pye, 1899), 6 (Hymn no. 4).
Latter-day Saint Hymnology 