Obama’s Grandmother Madelyn Dunham - Photos, Video & More
Sen. Barack Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died following a bout with cancer, Obama and his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, said Monday. She was 86.
At a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, Monday night, the Illinois senator said “she has gone home and she died peacefully in her sleep with my sister at her side.”
“I’m not going to talk about it long because it’s hard to talk about,” he added.
Obama remembered her as “one of those quiet heroes we have across America, who aren’t famous … but each and every day they work hard. They look after their families. They look after their children and their grandchildren.”
In a statement released Monday afternoon, Obama and his sister said that Dunham was “the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility.”
”She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances. She
was proud of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and left this world with the knowledge that her impact on all of us was meaningful and enduring. Our debt to her is beyond measure.”
Wikipedia has an extensive history and background on Obama’s grandparents - the Dunhams.
Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham was born on October 26, 1922 and died on November 2, 2008. She was married to Stanley Armour Dunham, born March 23, 1918. Mr. Dunham died on February 8, 1992. The Dunham’s were the maternal grandparents of Barack Obama, the junior United States Senator from Illinois and Democratic nominee in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.
They raised Obama from age 10 in their Honolulu, Hawaii apartment, where the widowed Mrs. Dunham lived until her death on November 2, 2008, in the same city as Obama’s half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng.
Madelyn Lee Payne was born in Peru, Kansas, the daughter of Rolla Charles and Leona (McCurry) Payne. She recalled them as “stern Methodist parents who did not believe in drinking, playing cards or dancing.” She moved with her parents to Augusta, Kansas at age of three. Madelyn was one of the best students in her high school graduating class in 1940. Despite her strict upbringing, she liked to go to Wichita, Kansas to see big band concerts. While in Wichita, she met Kansas-born Stanley Armour Dunham from the oil-town of El Dorado, Kansas and the “other side of the railroad tracks.” Stanley attended El Dorado High School.
The Dunhams were Baptists. Unlike the Paynes, Stanley Dunham did not come from a white-collar background. At age 8, Stanley discovered his mother’s body after she had committed suicide. Following his mother’s suicide, his father abandoned the family and Stanley and his brother, Ralph, was sent to live with his maternal grandparents in El Dorado, Kansas. Described as “gregarious, friendly, impetuous, challenging and loud,” he was a furniture salesman “who could charm the legs off a couch.” Madelyn’s parents did not approve of their marriage, which occurred on May 5, 1940.
During World War II, Stanley Dunham enlisted in the Army. Madelyn worked on a Boeing B-29 assembly line in Wichita. Her brother Charlie Payne was part of the 89th Infantry Division, which liberated the Nazi concentration camp at Ohrdruf, a subcamp of Buchenwald, a fact Barack Obama has referred to in speeches.
Madelyn gave birth to a daughter they named Stanley Ann, who was later known as Ann, in Fort Leavenworth on November 29, 1942. With Madelyn and Stanley both working full-time, the family moved to California, Kansas, Texas, and finally settled in Seattle, Washington (on Mercer Island), where Ann graduated from high school. In El Dorado, Kansas, Stanley had managed a furniture store while Madelyn worked in restaurants. In Seattle, Stanley worked in a bigger furniture store (Standard-Grunbaum Furniture) while Madelyn eventually became vice-president of a local bank. Mercer Island was then “a rural, idyllic place,” quiet, politically conservative and all white. Madelyn and Stanley attended Sunday services at the East Shore Unitarian Church in nearby Bellevue. While in Washington she attended the University of Washington. She later would also attend classes at the University of California, Berkeley.
Madelyn and Stanley then moved to Hawaii, where he found a better furniture store opportunity. She started working at the Bank of Hawaii in 1960 and was promoted to be one of the first female bank vice presidents in 1970. In 1970s Honolulu, both women and the minority white population were routinely the target of discrimination.
Ann attended the University of Hawaii and while she was there she met Barack Obama, Sr. a graduate student from Kenya. Both Dunhams were upset when their daughter married Obama, particularly after receiving a long, angry letter from the graduate student’s father in Kenya who “didn’t want the Obama blood sullied by a white woman.” The Dunhams adapted, however. Madelyn Dunham was quoted as saying, “I am a little dubious of the things that people from foreign countries tell me.”
After the Obama marriage fell apart, the young Barack spent four years with his mother and her second husband in Jakarta, Indonesia. He returned to the United States at age 10 to live with his maternal grandparents in the Makiki district of Honolulu and enrolled in the fifth grade at the Punahou School. The tuition fees for the prestigious preparatory school were paid with the aid of scholarships. Ann would later come back to Hawaii and pursue graduate studies; she eventually earned a Ph.D. in anthropology and went on to be employed on development projects in Indonesia and around the world helping impoverished women obtain microfinance. When she returned to Indonesia in 1977 for her Masters’ fieldwork, Obama stayed in the United States with his grandparents. Obama writes in his memoir, Dreams From My Father, “I’d arrived at an unspoken pact with my grandparents: I could live with them and they’d leave me alone so long as I kept my trouble out of sight.”
Obama and his half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng refer to Madelyn Dunham as “Toot” — short for “tutu,” the Hawaiian word for grandmother. In his book, Obama described his grandmother as “quiet yet firm”, in contrast to Obama’s “boisterous” grandfather Stanley. Obama considered his grandmother “a trailblazer of sorts, the first woman vice-president of a local bank.” Her colleagues recall her as a “tough boss” who would make you “sink or swim”, but who had a “soft spot for those willing to work hard.” She retired from the Bank of Hawaii in 1986.
Until her death, Dunham lived in the same small highrise apartment where she raised her grandson Barack. She was an avid bridge player, but mostly stayed at home in her apartment “listening to books on tape and watching her grandson on CNN every day.” Madelyn Dunham suffered from severe osteoporosis. In 2008, she underwent both corneal transplant and hip replacement surgeries.
Today, November 3, 2008 (November 2, Hawaiian Time), the Obama campaign announced that Madelyn Dunham had “died peacefully after a battle with cancer” in Hawaii. As indicated above, Senator Obama and his sister Maya released a statement saying, “She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility.” At a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina on November 3, Obama said, “She was one of those quiet heroes that we have all across America. They’re not famous. Their names are not in the newspapers, but each and every day they work hard. They aren’t seeking the limelight. All they try to do is just do the right thing.”
A “Bittersweet” Time for Obama
Obama’s Beloved Grandmother Passes Away
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Free Republic - A Real Class Act
Free Republic is having a little trouble with the Freepers. The moderator has had to remove entire threads today that relate to the death of Obama’s grandmother. Here is a little taste of what’s going on over there:
Yes. She served one purpose in life and she’ll serve another in death.
Yes. She served one purpose in life and she’ll serve another in death. Actually, I don’t think he called her a racist. He called her a “typical white” person with respect to fearing other races.
Comment #22 Removed by Moderator
It is thought that they have never met Grandma. Which is very strange.
Sad news.
The question now is, can Obama handle the strains of a difficult presidential transition and grieve for his grandmother at the same time? I doubt it.
He should withdraw his candidacy and spend the next several weeks where he belongs, with his family.
Comment #26 Removed by Moderator
Comment #28 Removed by Moderator
I thought she had broken her hip and was having a difficult recovery?
Fox is stating she died of cancer. I didn’t know she had cancer, I thought she had fallen down and broken a hip, or their was complications due to a fall.
Family relations are not always what people looking from the outside think they should be.
I dislike Obama’s socialist policies, not the amount of time that he or his family spent with a dying relative.
For God’s sake, people! Show some class!
I don’t care what you think of HIM, but that is beyond LOW to attach political meaning to his grandmother’s death!
How DARE you!
(And you can check the day I joined FR. I’ve been here a while. After this, I’m not sure I WANT to be associated with some of you!)
Comment #42 Removed by Moderator
“Wow, only 11 posts before someone implied she was murdered”
It was a crass commit but I don’t think murder was suggested, I took it as removal of life support, a common occurrence.
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