Born in
Bucksport, Maine, Wiley spent her early singing career working as a church and choral singer in
Chelsea, Massachusetts and touring with a Boston-based
vocal quartet. She first drew significant notice in 1874 when she performed as a soloist with the
Boston Philharmonic Club. She then toured actively as a performer with the Berger Family Bell Ringers. In 1878-1879 she sang leading roles with the
Boston Ideal Opera Company. In 1880 she performed the title role in
Edward E. Rice's
Evangeline in Boston. She returned to the New York stage the following year in several successful operettas produced by the J. W. Norcross Opera Company; including Bettina in
Edmond Audran's
The Mascot and Violetta in
Johann Strauss II's
The Merry War. In 1884 Wiley was the "leading attraction" at the Theatre Royal in
Manchester, England in the opera
Babes in the Woods. She also toured the English provinces with the company as the title heroine in
Luscombe Searelle's comic opera
Estrella. Later that year was back in the US and touring out of New York, as the leader of the Dora Wiley Opera Company. Her husband, the equally gifted comic actor
Richard Golden, from
Bangor, Maine, was initially part of her company, but later engaged Wiley to sing in his own successful play,
Old Jed Prouty in 1889. The year before (1888), Wiley sang "
Home Sweet Home" at New York's Metropolitan Opera House before President
Grover Cleveland and spent a year in Australia, first with the
Amy Sherwin Opera Company in Melbourne and then as prima dona in the opera
Maritana at the Gaiety Theatre in Sydney. Wiley divorced Golden in 1892 and then remarried her younger business manager, Charles Tennis. The two initially went to live in
Bangor, Maine, but Wiley was back on stage in New York in 1893, and toured until 1895, when she appeared in the western
On the Trail. She died in
Scarsdale, New York in 1924 at the age of 71. ==References==