Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham ( ; October 26, 1922 – November 2, 2008) was the American maternal grandmother of
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
, the 44th
president of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal gove ...
Honolulu
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the islan ...
apartment, where on November 2, 2008, she died two days before her grandson was elected president.
Early life
Madelyn Dunham, born Madelyn Lee Payne on October 26, 1922, in Peru, Kansas, was the eldest of four children of Rolla Charles "R.C." Payne (August 23, 1892 – October 15, 1968) and Leona Belle (McCurry) Payne (May 7, 1897 – March 22, 1968). In Barack Obama's memoir, '' Dreams From My Father'', he describes his great-grandparents as "stern
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related Christian denomination, denominations of Protestantism, Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John W ...
parents who did not believe in drinking, playing cards, or dancing." Dunham moved with her parents to
Augusta, Kansas
Augusta is a city in Butler County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 9,256.
History
19th century
The confluence of the Whitewater River and the Walnut River was originally inhabited by Osage pe ...
at the age of three. She was an honor roll student and one of the best students at Augusta High School, where she graduated in 1940. Despite her strict upbringing, she liked to go to
Wichita, Kansas
Wichita ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 397,532. The Wichita metro area had a population of 647,610 in 2020. It is located in ...
El Dorado, Kansas
El Dorado ( ) is city and county seat of Butler County, Kansas, United States. It is situated along the Walnut River in the central part of Butler County and located in south-central Kansas. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city ...
, and the two married on May 5, 1940, the night of Madelyn's
senior prom
A promenade dance, commonly called a prom, is a dance party for Secondary school, high school students. It may be offered in semi-formal wear, semi-formal black tie or informal wear, informal suit for boys, and evening gowns for girls. This even ...
.
Adult life
World War II
During World War II, Madelyn Dunham worked the night shift on a
Boeing B-29
The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the B-17 Fly ...
assembly line in Wichita and Stanley Dunham enlisted in the
Army
An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
Buchenwald
Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...
, a fact Barack Obama has referred to in speeches. Madelyn Dunham gave birth to their only child, a daughter named Stanley Ann Dunham, who was later known as Ann, at St. Francis Hospital in Wichita on November 29, 1942.
Post-World War II
With Madelyn and Stanley Dunham both working full-time, the family moved to
Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...
,
Ponca City, Oklahoma
Ponca City ( iow, Chína Uhánⁿdhe) is a city in Kay County in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The city was named after the Ponca tribe. Ponca City had a population of 25,387 at the time of the 2010 census- and a population of 24,424 in the 2020 ...
,
Vernon, Texas
Vernon is a city and the county seat of Wilbarger County, Texas, United States. and as of the 2010 Census had a population of 11,002.
History
The original town was called Eagle Springs by the indigenous community as early as 1858. After the ...
,
El Dorado, Kansas
El Dorado ( ) is city and county seat of Butler County, Kansas, United States. It is situated along the Walnut River in the central part of Butler County and located in south-central Kansas. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city ...
,
Seattle, Washington
Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...
and settled in
Mercer Island, Washington
Mercer Island is a city in King County, Washington, United States, located on an island of the same name in the southern portion of Lake Washington. Mercer Island is in the Seattle metropolitan area, with Seattle to its west and Bellevue t ...
, where Ann Dunham graduated from Mercer Island High School. In El Dorado, Madelyn Dunham worked in restaurants and Stanley Dunham had managed a furniture store. In Seattle, she eventually became vice-president of a local bank and Stanley Dunham worked in a bigger furniture store (Standard-Grunbaum Furniture). Mercer Island was then "a rural, idyllic place", quiet, politically conservative and all white. Madelyn and Stanley Dunham attended church at the East Shore Unitarian Church in Bellevue. While in Washington, Madelyn Dunham attended the University of Washington although she never completed a degree.
Hawaii
The Dunhams then moved to
Honolulu, Hawaii
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the islan ...
, where Madelyn Dunham started working at the Bank of Hawaii in 1960 and was promoted to be one of the bank's first female vice presidents in 1970, while Stanley Dunham worked at a furniture store. In 1970s Honolulu, both women and the minority white population were routinely the target of discrimination.
Ann Dunham attended the University of Hawaii, and while attending a Russian language class, she met Barack Obama Sr. in 1960, a graduate student from
Kenya
)
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, capital = Nairobi
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, ...
. Stanley and Madelyn Dunham were unhappy about their daughter's marriage to Obama Sr. in 1961, particularly after receiving a long, angry letter from his father, who "didn't want the Obama blood sullied by a white woman". The Dunhams adapted, but Madelyn Dunham was quoted as saying, "I am a little dubious of the things that people from foreign countries tell me". In 1961,
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
was born to Ann and Barack Obama Sr. They divorced in 1963 and Ann Dunham married Lolo Soetoro from Indonesia.
Madelyn and Stanley Dunham raised their grandson, Barack Obama from age 10 while his mother and step-father were living in
Jakarta, Indonesia
Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...
, so he could go to school in Hawaii. In fifth grade, Obama was enrolled at the Punahou School, a prestigious preparatory school where his tuition fees were paid with the aid of scholarships. Ann Dunham later came back to Hawaii to pursue graduate studies, but when she returned to Indonesia in 1977 for her master's fieldwork, Obama stayed in the United States with his grandparents. Obama wrote 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 referred to Dunham as "Toot"—short for "tutu", the Hawaiian word for grandmother. In his book, Obama described Dunham as "quiet yet firm", in contrast to his "boisterous" grandfather. 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
The Bank of Hawaii Corporation ( haw, Panakō o Hawaii; abbreviated BOH) is a regional commercial bank headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii. It is Hawaii's second oldest bank and its largest locally owned bank in that the majority of the voting st ...
in 1986.
During an interview for '' Vanity Fair'', Obama said, "She was the opposite of a dreamer, at least by the time I knew her. ... Whether that was always the case or whether she scaled back her dreams as time went on and learned to deal with certain disappointments is not entirely clear. But she was just a very tough, sensible, no-nonsense person". During his teenage years, it was his grandmother who "injected" into him "a lot of that very midwestern, sort of traditional sense of prudence and hard work", even though "some of those values didn't sort of manifest themselves until I got older".
Obama said about her during an interview with
Diane Sawyer
Lila Diane Sawyer (; born December 22, 1945) is an American television broadcast journalist known for anchoring major programs on two networks including '' ABC World News Tonight'', ''Good Morning America'', '' 20/20'', and ''Primetime'' newsmag ...
, "She never got a college education but is one of the smartest people I know. ... She's where I get my practical streak. That part of me that's hardheaded, I get from her. She's tough as nails". Obama said his iconic image of his grandmother was seeing her come home from work and trading her business outfit and girdle for a muumuu, some slippers and a drink and a cigarette.
Later years
Dunham took care of her daughter in Hawaii in the months before Ann Dunham died in 1995 at age 52.
Until her death, Madelyn Dunham lived in the same small high-rise apartment where she raised her grandson, Barack Obama. 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". Dunham developed severe osteoporosis and, in 2008, she underwent both
corneal transplant
Corneal transplantation, also known as corneal grafting, is a surgical procedure where a damaged or diseased cornea is replaced by donated corneal tissue (the graft). When the entire cornea is replaced it is known as penetrating keratoplasty ...
and
hip replacement
Hip replacement is a surgical procedure in which the hip joint is replaced by a prosthetic implant, that is, a hip prosthesis. Hip replacement surgery can be performed as a total replacement or a hemi (half) replacement. Such joint replacement ...
surgeries.
2008 presidential campaign
Dunham was generally not seen in the 2008 presidential campaign. In March 2008, at age 85, she was quoted as saying, "I am not giving any interviews...I am in poor health".
On March 18, 2008, in a speech on race relations in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
Jeremiah Wright
Jeremiah Alvesta Wright Jr. (born September 22, 1941) is a pastor emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, a congregation he led for 36 years, during which its membership grew to over 8,000 parishioners. Following retirement, his be ...
surfacing, Obama described his grandmother:
On March 20, 2008, in a radio interview on Philadelphia's WIP, Obama explained this remark by saying:
Obama's use of the phrase "typical white person" was highlighted by a columnist for the ''
Philadelphia Daily News
''Philadelphia Daily News'' is a tabloid newspaper that serves Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper is owned by The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC, which also owns Philadelphia's other major newspaper ''The Philadelphia Inquirer' ...
'' and subsequently picked up by commentators on other media outlets. In a CNN interview, when
Larry King
Larry King (born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger; November 19, 1933 – January 23, 2021) was an American television and radio host, whose awards included 2 Peabodys, an Emmy and 10 Cable ACE Awards. Over his career, he hosted over 50,000 interviews. ...
asked him to clarify the "typical white person" remark, Obama said:
One of Dunham's co-workers for over 40 years said he "never heard her say anything like that. I never heard her say anything negative about anything". Hawaiian State Senator
Sam Slom
Samuel Morgan Slom (born April 13, 1942) is an American politician and a former member of the Hawaii Senate, where he represented the 9th District (which included Hawaii Kai, Aina Haina, Kahala and Diamond Head on the island of Oahu) from 1996 ...
, who worked with her at the Bank of Hawaii, said "I never heard Madelyn say anything disparaging about people of African ancestry or Asian ancestry or anybody's ancestry". Her brother, Charlie Payne, told the Associated Press that his sister's reaction to being made a campaign issue was "no more than just sort of raised eyebrows".
In April 2008, Madelyn Dunham appeared briefly in her first campaign ad for her grandson, saying that Obama had "a lot of depth, and a broadness of view".
In a September 10, 2008, interview on ''
Late Show with David Letterman
The ''Late Show with David Letterman'' is an American late-night talk show hosted by David Letterman on CBS, the first iteration of the ''Late Show'' franchise. The show debuted on August 30, 1993, and was produced by Letterman's production c ...
'', Obama described his grandmother as follows:
On October 20, 2008, the Obama campaign announced that he would suspend campaign events on October 23 and 24 to spend some time with Dunham. His communications director told reporters that she had fallen ill in the preceding weeks, and that while she was released from the hospital the week before, her health had deteriorated "to the point where her situation is very serious". In an October 23, 2008, interview with CBS News, Obama said, "She has really been the rock of the family, the foundation of the family. Whatever strength, discipline – that – that I have – it comes from her".
Death
On November 2, 2008 (November 3, 2008 in the continental United States), the Obama campaign announced that Madelyn Dunham had "died peacefully after a battle with cancer" in Hawaii. Obama and his sister Maya Soetoro 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
Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...
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". Dunham's
absentee ballot
An absentee ballot is a vote cast by someone who is unable or unwilling to attend the official polling station to which the voter is normally allocated. Methods include voting at a different location, postal voting, proxy voting and online vot ...
, received by the election office on October 27, was included in Hawaii's total. On December 23, 2008, after a private memorial service at the First Unitarian Church of Honolulu, then President-elect Obama and his sister scattered their grandmother's ashes in the ocean at Lanai Lookout. It was the same spot where they had scattered their mother's ashes in 1995.
Ancestry
Madelyn Payne Dunham's heritage consists mostly of English ancestors, and smaller amounts of Scottish,
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
ancestors, who settled in the American colonies during the 17th and 18th centuries. Her most recent native European ancestor was her great-great grandfather, Robert Perry, who was born in Anglesey, Wales in 1786 and whose father, Henry Perry, first settled
Radnor, Ohio
Radnor is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in central Radnor Township, Delaware County, Ohio, United States. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 180. Radnor has a post office
A post office is a publi ...
in 1803. Robert Perry's wife, Sarah Hoskins, was also born in Wales and immigrated to
Delaware County, Ohio
Delaware County is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of Ohio. It is a frequent placeholder on the List of highest-income counties in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 214,124. Its county seat ...
as a young child.
According to the family's
oral tradition
Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985 ...
, her mother had some
Cherokee
The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, th ...
ancestors, although researchers have found no concrete evidence of this to date.
Ancestry.com
Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites.
In November 2018, ...
announced on July 30, 2012, that, going by a combination of old documents and
yDNA
The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes (allosomes) in therian mammals, including humans, and many other animals. The other is the X chromosome. Y is normally the Sex chromosome#Sex determination, sex-determining chromosome in many species, ...
analysis, her mother's family may be descended from John Punch, an African man, who was an
indentured servant
Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an " indenture", may be entered "voluntarily" for purported eventual compensation or debt repaymen ...
then
slave
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
in seventeenth-century colonial
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography an ...
Sub-Saharan
Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the African co ...
origin, possibly from
Cameroon
Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west- central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; th ...
.
Ancestry chart source:
New England Historic Genealogical Society
The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) is the oldest and largest genealogical society in the United States, founded in 1845.
NEHGS provides family history services through its staff, original scholarship, website,
Honolulu Advertiser
''The Honolulu Advertiser'' was a daily newspaper published in Honolulu, Hawaii. At the time publication ceased on June 6, 2010, it was the largest daily newspaper in the American state of Hawaii. It published daily with special Sunday an ...