Anna Terre Scruggs was born in Texas and moved with her parents to New Orleans, where she was reared and educated at the Benedictine Convent and New Orleans Elementary and High School. She married in 1918 and five years later moved with her husband, Warren Dunnam, to a farm northeast of Enid, Oklahoma, where she was active in social organizations, the Parent-Teacher Association of Oklahoma, and the Federated Garden Clubs of Oklahoma. Among her local and state interests were the National Youth Administration, the Society of Crippled Children, and the Oklahoma Association for Mental Health, each of which she served in an administrative capacity. In 1943, Governor Robert S. Kerr appointed her as Superintendent of Enid State School and she was reappointed by Governors Roy Turner, William H. Murray, and Raymond Gary. She was instrumental in the preparation and planning for the New Mental Health Code for the state of Oklahoma, served on the Board of Directors of the Oklahoma Association for Retarded Children, and was a charter member of the Association for Mental Health.