About 300 mourners gathered at First Church to pay their respects to the former Otago Hospital Board chairman, city councillor and Labour Party life member, who died last Sunday, aged 89.
Messages from former prime minister Helen Clark and Labour Party leader Andrew Little were among the tributes paid during the service.
Miss Clark said Dame Dorothy had ''paved the way for women in local government'', while Mr Little described her as an ''extraordinary woman'' and a ''local champion for the Labour Party''.
Officiating minister the Rev John Sinclair outlined Dame Dorothy's formative years growing up in Hawkes Bay in a big family during the Depression years, recalling how she had known ''what life was like at the bottom'', but had worked hard to prove that life did not have to be like that.
He also praised Dame Dorothy's selfless devotion to her community. She had served on more than 40 organisations and committees in Dunedin, often in a leadership role, and all with a calm but firm resolve, from a woman who ''stood no nonsense''.
Dame Dorothy's son-in-law, Malcolm Liddell, also recalled how she had worked for many years as the ''unpaid electorate secretary'' for her late husband, W. A. ''Bill'' Fraser, the Labour MP for St Kilda (1957-81).
