Madelyn Lee Dunham (Payne) (1922 - 2008) - Genealogy Madelyn Lee Dunham Share your family tree and photos with the people you know and love Build your family tree online Share photos and videos Sister of <private> Payne; <private> Payne; <private> Payne and <private> Paine Occupation: Bank Vice President, Bank vice president Managed by: National Memorial Cemetery of The Pacific, 2177 Puowaina Drive, Honolulu, Hawaii 96813, USA Spouse: Oct 26 1922 - Peru, Kansas Death: Nov 2 2008 - Honolulu, Hawaii Husband: National Memorial Cemetery-Pacific, Honolulu, Hawaii, United States Husband (implied): National Memorial Cemetery of The Pacific, Honolulu, Hawaii, United States Husband (implied): Oct 23 1922 - Peru, Chautauqua, Kansas, United States Death: Nov 2 2008 - Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii, United States Husband: Oct 23 1922 - Peru, Chautauqua Co., Kansas Death: Nov 2 2008 - Honolulu, Oahu

, Hawaii, United States Husband: Oct 26 1922 - Peru, Chautauqua, Kansas, United States Death: Nov 2 2008 - Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii, United States Death: Nov 4 2008 - Montpelier-Barre, Vermont, United States Death: Nov 4 2008 - Trenton, New Jersey, United States Death: Nov 4 2008 - Illinois, United States Death: Nov 13 2008 - West Virginia, United States Parents: Rolla Charles Payne, Leona Belle Payne (born McCurry) Husband: Cause of death: Cancer - Nov 3 2008 - Hawaii Parents: Leona McCurry Payne, Rolla Charles Payne Brother: Oct 1922 - Peru, Kansas, USA Death: Nov 2 2008 - Honolulu, HI, USA Parents: Rolla Charles Payne, Leona Belle Payne Husband: sibling About Madelyn Lee Dunham Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham; October 26, 1922 – November 2, 2008, and Stanley Armour Dunham (March 23, 

1918 – February 8, 1992) were the maternal grandparents of Barack Obama, the junior United States Senator from Illinois and president-elect of the United States of America.

They raised Obama from age 10 in their Honolulu, Hawaii apartment, where the widowed Mrs. Dunham died on November 2, 2008, only two days before her grandson was elected the 44th President of the United States. From Wikipedia Both Madelyn and Stanley Dunham descend from European ancestors, mostly from England, who settled in the American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries. Their most recent European ancestor was Stanley's great grandfather, Falmouth Kearney, a farmer who emigrated from Moneygall, County Offaly, Ireland during the Great Irish Famine and settled in Jefferson Township, Tipton County, Indiana. Kearney's youngest daughter, Mary Ann (Kearney) Dunham, was Stanley Dunham's paternal grandmother. Through a common ancestor, Mareen Duvall (a wealthy French Huguenot merchant who immigrated to Maryland in the 1650s), Stanley Dunham was related to President Harry S Truman (an eighth cousin twice removed) and the current Vice-President Dick Cheney (an eighth cousin once removed), among others.

According to Obama, Madelyn Dunham's mother was of part Cherokee descent, in which Madelyn took great pride. To date, no concrete evidence has surfaced of Cherokee heritage. Obama's maternal heritage consists mostly of English ancestry, and smaller amounts of Irish and German ancestry. 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 the 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, were 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 Sr., particularly after receiving a long, angry letter from Obama Sr.'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 referred 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. Stanley Dunham died in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1992 and is buried there in the Punchbowl National Cemetery. Madelyn Dunham took care of her daughter in Hawaii in the months before Ann died of ovarian cancer in 1995 at age 52.

Her last interview was in 2004, on the occasion of her grandson's keynote address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Until her death, Dunham lived in the same small high-rise 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. Madelyn Dunham was generally not seen in the 2008 presidential campaign.

In March 2008, the 85-year-old Dunham 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 in the wake of controversial videos of Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright surfacing, Obama described his grandmother: I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe. On March 20, 2008, in a radio interview on Philadelphia's WIP (AM), Obama explained this remark by saying: The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity - she doesn't.

But she is a typical white person, who, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know...there's a reaction that's been bred into our experiences that don't go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way, and that's just the nature of race in our society. Obama's use of the phrase "typical white person" was highlighted by a gossip columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News and subsequently picked up by commentators on the Huffington Post blog, ABC News and other media outlets. In a CNN interview, when Larry King asked him to clarify the "typical white person" remark, Obama said: Well, what I meant really was that some of the fears of street crime and some of the stereotypes that go along with that were responses that I think many people feel. She's not extraordinary in that regard. She is somebody that I love as much as anybody. I mean, she has literally helped to raise me. But those are fears that are embedded in our culture, and embedded in our society, and even within our own families, even within a family like mine that is diverse. Dennis Ching, who worked with her for more than 40 years, "never heard her say anything like that.

I never heard her say anything negative about anything." Hawaiian State Senator Sam Slom, who worked with her at the Bank of Hawaii, said "I never heard Madelyn say anything disparaging about people of African ancestry or Asia 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 with the Late Show with David Letterman, Obama described his grandmother as follows: Eighty-seven years old. She can't travel. She has terrible osteoporosis so she can't fly, but, you know, she has been the rock of our family and she is sharp as a tack. I mean, she's just - she follows everything, but she has a very subdued, sort of Midwestern attitude about these things.

So when I got nominated, she called and said, ‘That's nice, Barry, that's nice.'" 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 described his grandmother as follows: "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." On November 2, 2008 (November 3, 2008 in the continental U.S.), the Obama campaign announced that Madelyn Dunham had "died peacefully after a battle with cancer" in Hawaii.

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." Dunham's absentee ballot, received by the election office on October 27, was included in Hawaii's total. Ancestry Madelyn Payne Dunham's heritage consists mostly of English ancestors, and smaller amounts of Scottish, Welsh, Irish and German ancestors, who settled in the American colonies during the 17th and 18th centuries.[38] [39] [40] 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 settler of Radnor, Ohio in 1803.

Robert Perry's wife, Sarah Hoskins, was also born in Wales and immigrated to Delaware County, Ohio as a young child.[41] Wild Bill Hickok is Madelyn's sixth cousin, four times removed. [42] According to oral tradition, her mother had some Cherokee ancestors, although researchers have found no concrete evidence of this to date. [43][44][45] ================ Birth: 23 Mar 1918, Wichita, Sedgwick Co., KS Death: 8 Feb 1992, Honolulu, Oahu, HI Disposition: buried Punchbowl National Cemetery, Honolulu, Oahu, HI Military Service: World War II: Sgt., U.S.

Army Occupation: furniture salesman Father: Ralph Waldo Emerson DUNHAM Mother: Ruth Lucille ARMOUR Marriage: 5 May 1940 Wife: Madelyn Lee "Toot" PAYNE — her nickname is short for "tutu," the Hawaiian word for grandmother Birth: 26 Oct 1922, Peru, Chautauqua Co., KS Death (Hawaiin-Aleutian time zone): 2 Nov 2008, Honolulu, Oahu, HI Death (continental U.S. time zones): 3 Nov 2008, Honolulu, Oahu, HI Occupations: Boeing assembly line (WWII); Vice-President, Bank of Hawaii Religion: Baptist, Unitarian Madelyn Dunham (Vice President) - Pics, Videos, Dating, & News Madelyn Dunham Female Born Oct 26, 1922 Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham was the American maternal grandmother of Barack Obama, the 44th and current President of the United States of America.

She and her husband Stanley Armour Dunham raised Obama from age ten in their Honolulu, Hawaii apartment, where on November 2, 2008, she died two days before her grandson was elected President.… Read More related links Milton Wolf To Challenge Pat Roberts For U.S. Senate Seat The Huffington Post - Oct 09, 2013 ' (Corrects spelling of Wolf\'s first name in first paragraph) By Kevin Murphy KANSAS CITY, Kan. Oct 8 (Reuters) - Milton Wolf, a Tea Party activist and distant cousin of President Barack Obama, will challenge three-term Kansas U.S. Senator Pat Roberts in the 2014 Republican primary election, Wolf\'s campaign said on Tuesday. Wolf, 42, a radiologist, will make the formal announcement on Tuesday evening, according to his website. Campaign man... Southern Baptist Leader: Jesus Wouldnât Like Health Care Panels ajc - Apr 10, 2012 ' On C-SPAN this morning, Richard Land, president of that arm of the Southern Baptist Convention that concerns itself with national issue, was asked by a caller to justify his opposition to President Barack Obamaâs health care overhaul.

\n Said Land: \n âI donât think Jesus would support the rationing panels that are in place for Obamacare. Iâm getting letters every day â every day â from people who are already being rationed care since the new head of Medicare came in. Theyâre being told if... The Young Mother Abroad NYTimes - Apr 24, 2011 'The photograph showed the son, but my eye gravitated toward the mother. That first glimpse was surprising -- the stout, pale-skinned woman in sturdy sandals, standing squarely a half-step ahead of the lithe, darker-skinned figure to her left. His elas/tic-band body bespoke discipline, even asceticism. Her form was well padded, territory ceded long' On The White House; Personal Experience Weighs On Obama In Health Policy Debate NYTimes - May 01, 2009 'In the weeks before he was elected president, Barack Obama confronted a life crisis all too common in families across America. His grandmother, who already had a diagnosis of terminal cancer, fell and broke her hip, possibly because of a mild stroke.

The question became whether to replace her hip even though she was dying. As Mr. Obama recounted' Learn about the memorable moments in the evolution of Madelyn Dunham. CHILDHOOD 1922 Birth Born on October 26, 1922. TEENAGE Show Less Madelyn was an honor roll student and one of the best students at Augusta High School, where she graduated in 1940. … Read More Despite her strict upbringing, she liked to go to Wichita, Kansas to see big band concerts. Read Less While in Wichita, she met Stanley Dunham from El Dorado, Kansas, and the two married on May 5, 1940, the night of Madelyn's senior prom. … Read More During World War II, Stanley Dunham enlisted in the Army. Madelyn worked the night shift 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.

Read Less 1942 19 Years Old Madelyn gave birth to their only child, a daughter named Stanley Ann, who was later known as Ann, at St. Francis Hospital in Wichita on November 29, 1942. … Read More With Madelyn and Stanley both working full-time, the family moved to Berkeley, California, Ponca City, Oklahoma, Vernon, Texas, El Dorado, Kansas, Seattle, Washington and finally settled in Mercer Island, Washington, where Ann graduated from Mercer Island 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 church at the East Shore Unitarian Church in Bellevue.

While in Washington Madelyn attended the University of Washington although she never completed a degree.<br /><br /> The Dunhams then moved to Honolulu, Hawaii, where Stanley found a better furniture store opportunity, and Madelyn 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 attending a Russian language class, she met Barack Obama, Sr., a graduate student from Kenya. Stanley and Madelyn were unhappy about Ann's marriage to Obama, Sr., particularly after receiving a long, angry letter from his father who "didn't want the Obama blood sullied by a white woman." Read Less FIFTIES 1977 54 Years Old … The Dunhams adapted, however, as Madelyn was quoted as saying, "I am a little dubious of the things that people from foreign countries tell me." <br /><br />After Ann and Barack's marriage fell apart, the young Barack Obama, Jr.

spent four years with his mother and stepfather Lolo Soetoro in Jakarta, Indonesia. He returned to Honolulu at age ten 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 PhD in anthropology and went on to be employed on development projects in Indonesia and around the world helping impoverished women obtain microfinance. Read Less When she returned to Indonesia in 1977 for her Masters' fieldwork, Obama stayed in the United States with his grandparents. … Read More Obama writes in his memoir, Dreams From My Father, stated: "Iâ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."<br /><br /> Obama and his half-sister Maya Soetoro referred to their maternal grandmother as "Toot" â 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." Read Less LATE ADULTHOOD 1986 63 Years Old She retired from the Bank of Hawaii in 1986. … Read More During an interview for Vanity Fair, Obama said, â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.â During his teenage years, it was his grandmother who âinjectedâ into him âa lot of that very midwestern, sort of traditional sense of prudence and hard work,â even though âsome of those values didnât sort of manifest themselves until I got older.â <br /><br /> During an interview with Diane Sawyer, "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. Read Less Show Less … Until her death, Dunham lived in the same small high-rise 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.

Read Less In 2008, she underwent both corneal transplant and hip replacement surgeries. Madelyn Dunham was generally not seen in the 2008 presidential campaign. … Read More In March 2008, the 85-year-old Dunham was quoted as saying, "I am not giving any interviews I am in poor health." Read Less On March 18, 2008, in a speech on race relations in Philadelphia in the wake of controversial videos of Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright surfacing, Obama described his grandmother: On March 20, 2008, in a radio interview on Philadelphia's WIP, Obama explained this remark by saying: … Read More But she is a typical white person, who, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know there's a reaction that's been bred into our experiences that don't go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way, and that's just the nature of race in our society.<br /><br /> Obama's use of the phrase "typical white person" was highlighted by a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News and subsequently picked up by commentators on the Huffington Post blog, ABC News and other media outlets.

In a CNN interview, when Larry King asked him to clarify the "typical white person" remark, Obama said: <br /><br /> She's not extraordinary in that regard. She is somebody that I love as much as anybody. I mean, she has literally helped to raise me. But those are fears that are embedded in our culture, and embedded in our society, and even within our own families, even within a family like mine that is diverse. Read Less 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 with the Late Show with David Letterman, Obama described his grandmother as follows: … Read More She can't travel. She has terrible osteoporosis so she can't fly, but, you know, she has been the rock of our family and she is sharp as a tack. I mean, she's just â she follows everything, but she has a very subdued, sort of Midwestern attitude about these things. So when I got nominated, she called and said, "That's nice, Barry, that's nice".

Read Less 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. … Read More 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." Read Less In an October 23, 2008 interview with CBS News, Obama described his grandmother as follows: "She has really been the rock of the family, the foundation of the family. … Read More Whatever strength, discipline â that â that I have â it comes from her". Read Less On December 23, 2008, after a private memorial service at the First Unitarian Church of Honolulu, Obama and his sister scattered their grandmother's ashes in the ocean at Lanai Lookout. … Read More It was the same spot where they had scattered their mother's ashes in 1995.

Obama was staying at Plantation Estate at the time.<br /><br /> Madelyn Payne Dunham's heritage consists mostly of English ancestors, and smaller amounts of Scottish, Welsh, Irish, and German 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 in 1803. Robert Perry's wife, Sarah Hoskins, was also born in Wales and immigrated to Delaware County, Ohio as a young child.<br /><br /> According to oral tradition, her mother had some Cherokee ancestors, although researchers have found no concrete evidence of this to date. Ancestry.com announced on July 30, 2012, that by using a combination of old documents and yDNA analysis her mother's family may be descended from African John Punch, who was an indentured servant/slave in seventeenth-century colonial Virginia. The DNA evidence suggests that Punch was of Sub-Saharan origin, possibly from Cameroon.

Read Less … Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham (October 26, 1922 â November 2, 2008) was the American maternal grandmother of Barack Obama, the 44th and current President of the United States. Read Less She and her husband Stanley Armour Dunham raised Obama from age ten in their Honolulu, Hawaii, apartment, where on November 2, 2008, she died two days before her grandson was elected President. … Read More Madelyn Lee Payne was born in Peru, Kansas, the eldest of four children of Rolla Charles "R.C." Payne (August 23, 1892 â October 15, 1968) and Leona Belle (McCurry) Payne (May 7, 1897 â March 22, 1968). In Barack Obama's memoir, Dreams From My Father, he describes them as "stern Methodist parents who did not believe in drinking, playing cards, or dancing." She moved with her parents to Augusta, Kansas at the age of three.

Read Less 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. … Read More 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. Theyâre not famous. Their names are not in the newspapers, but each and every day they work hard. They arenât seeking the limelight. All they try to do is just do the right thing." Dunham's absentee ballot, received by the election office on October 27, was included in Hawaii's total. Read Less Original Authors of this text are noted on .

Madelyn Dunham, Obama's Grandmother, Dies : NPR Madelyn Dunham, Obama's Grandmother, Dies November 3, 20084:12 PM ET Allison Keyes Madelyn Payne Dunham, the maternal grandmother of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, died Monday at the age of 86 after a battle with cancer, his campaign announced Monday. The Illinois senator has called his grandmother one of the "cornerstones" of his life. In a statement released with his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama called his grandmother "a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility. She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances." Dunham had been too ill to appear with her grandson on the campaign trail, but he spoke of her often, particularly at crucial moments in his political career. "Tonight, I can stand here and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for the president of the United States of America," Obama said in June after securing enough delegates to clinch the nomination. But on that historic night this past summer, he paused before his prepared speech to acknowledge his grandmother.

"Thank you to my grandmother who helped raise me, and is sitting in Hawaii somewhere right now because she can't travel, but who poured everything she had into me, and who helped to make me the man I am today. ... Tonight is for her," Obama said. Article continues after sponsorship Obama also discussed Dunham in his March speech about race, in which he talked about growing up in a mixed-race household. The speech was a response to controversy over racial remarks made by Obama's former minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. "I can no more disown him," Obama said, "than I can disown my white grandmother, a woman who helped raise me. A woman who sacrificed again and again for me. A woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world. But a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who pass her on the street, and who, on more than one occasion, has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe. These people are part of me." The son of a Kenyan man and a white woman from Kansas, Obama was born in Hawaii.

When he was 11, his mother, Ann Dunham, sent him to Honolulu, where Obama spent years living in a two-bedroom apartment with his grandmother and grandfather, Stanley Dunham. During World War II, Madelyn Dunham worked on a bomber assembly line. After the war, she worked her way up to vice president at a local bank in Hawaii. With just two weeks to go before the presidential election, Obama left the campaign trail to visit Dunham in Honolulu. She had recently broken her hip, and Obama told ABC that visiting her was important to him. "One of the things I wanted to make sure of is that I had a chance to sit down with her and talk to her," he said. "She's still alert and she's still got all her faculties, and I want to make sure that I don't miss that opportunity right now." Obama has said the biggest regret of his life was not making it to his mother's bedside before she died in 1995. He has said he wouldn't make that mistake again.

Michelle Obama explained her husband's absence from the campaign trail during his visit with "Toot" – Obama's name for his grandma (short for "Tutu," which is a local term for "grandmother"). The candidate's wife talked about Dunham's importance to him and his family. "He said, 'You know, I got my toughness from Toot,' 'cause she taught him with her quiet confidence and love and support that he could do anything," Michelle Obama said. "Just deep love and admiration." In a rare 2004 interview with The Chicago Tribune, Dunham said she supposed she had provided some stability in Obama's life. In their joint statement Monday, Obama and his sister said, "Our debt to her is beyond measure." Madelyn Dunham Obituary | Madelyn Dunham Funeral | Legacy.com Madelyn Dunham Obituary Visit Guest Book HONOLULU (AP) - Barack Obama's grandmother, whose personality and bearing shaped much of the life of the Democratic presidential contender, has died, Obama announced Monday, one day before the election. Madelyn Payne Dunham was 86. Obama announced the news from the campaign trail in Charlotte, N.C.

The joint statement with his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng said Dunham died peacefully late Sunday night after a battle with cancer. They said: "She 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." Obama learned of her death Monday morning while he was campaigning in Jacksonville, Fla. He planned to go ahead with campaign appearances. The family said a private ceremony would be held later. Last month, Obama took a break from campaigning and flew to Hawaii to be with Dunham as her health declined. Obama said the decision to go to Hawaii was easy to make, telling CBS that he "got there too late" when his mother died of ovarian cancer in 1995 at 53, and wanted to make sure "that I don't make the same mistake twice." The Kansas-born Dunham and her husband, Stanley, raised their grandson for several years so he could attend school in Honolulu while their daughter and her second husband lived overseas. Her influence on Obama's manner and the way he viewed the world was substantial, the candidate himself told millions watching him accept his party's nomination in Denver in August.

"She's the one who taught me about hard work," he said. "She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me." Obama's nickname for his grandmother was "Toot," a version of the Hawaiian word for grandmother, tutu. Many of his speeches describe her working on a bomber assembly line during World War II. Madelyn and Stanley Dunham married in 1940, a few weeks before she graduated from high school. Their daughter, Stanley Ann, was born in 1942. After several moves to and from California, Texas, Washington and Kansas, Stanley Dunham's job landed the family in Hawaii. It was there that Stanley Ann later met and fell in love with Obama's father, a Kenyan named Barack Hussein Obama Sr. They had met in Russian class at the University of Hawaii. Their son was born in August 1961, but the marriage didn't last long. She later married an Indonesian, Lolo Soetoro, another university student she met in Hawaii. Obama moved to Indonesia with his mother and stepfather at age 6.

But in 1971, her mother sent him back to Hawaii to live with her parents. He stayed with the Dunhams until he graduated from high school in 1979. In his autobiography, Obama wrote fondly of playing basketball on a court below his grandparents' 10th-floor Honolulu apartment, and looking up to see his grandmother watching. It was the same apartment Obama visited on annual holiday trips to Hawaii, a weeklong vacation from his campaign in August, and his pre-election visit in October. Family members said his grandmother could not travel because of her health. Madelyn Dunham, who took university classes but to her chagrin never earned a degree, nonetheless rose from a secretarial job at the Bank of Hawaii to become one of the state's first female bank vice presidents. "Every morning, she woke up at 5 a.m. and changed from the frowsy muumuus she wore around the apartment into a tailored suit and high-heeled pumps," Obama wrote. After her health took a turn for the worse, her brother said on Oct. 21 that she had already lived long enough to see her "Barry" achieve what she'd wanted for him.

"I think she thinks she was important in raising a fine young man," Charles Payne, 83, said in a brief telephone interview from his Chicago home. "I doubt if it would occur to her that he would go this far this fast. But she's enjoyed watching it." Stanley Dunham died in 1992, while Obama's mother died in 1995. His father is also deceased. When Obama was young, he and his grandmother toured the United States by Greyhound bus, stopping at the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park, Disneyland and Chicago, where Obama would years later settle. It was an incident during his teenage years that became one of Obama's most vivid memories of Toot. She had been aggressively panhandled by a man and she wanted her husband to take her to work. When Obama asked why, his grandfather said Madelyn Dunham was bothered because the panhandler was black. The words hit the biracial Obama "like a fist in my stomach," he wrote later. He was sure his grandparents loved him deeply.

"And yet," he added, "I knew that men who might easily have been my brothers could still inspire their rawest fears." Obama referred to the incident again when he addressed race in a speech in March during a controversy over his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. "I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother," he said. Dunham was "a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world but who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her on the street." Still, much of who Obama is comes from his grandmother, said his half sister. "From our grandmother, he gets his pragmatism, his levelheadedness, his ability to stay centered in the eye of the story," she told The Associated Press. "His sensible, no-nonsense (side) is inherited from her." Madelyn Lee Payne was born to Rolla and Leona Payne in October, 1922, in Peru, Kan., but lived much of her childhood in nearby Augusta.

She was the oldest of four children, and she loved to read everything from James Hilton's "Lost Horizon" to Agatha Christie's "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd." Dunham and her husband were "vicious" bridge players, according to her brother Jack. After retirement, the two of them would take island cruises and do little but play bridge and a more difficult version called duplicate bridge. Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press HONOLULU (AP) - Barack Obama's grandmother, whose personality and bearing shaped much of the life of the Democratic presidential contender, has died, Obama announced Monday, one day before the election. Madelyn Payne Dunham was 86. Obama announced the news from the campaign trail in Charlotte, N.C. The joint statement with his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng said Dunham died peacefully late Sunday night after a battle with cancer. They said: "She 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." Obama learned of her death Monday morning while he was campaigning in Jacksonville, Fla. He planned to go ahead with campaign appearances.

The family said a private ceremony would be held later. Last month, Obama took a break from campaigning and flew to Hawaii to be with Dunham as her health declined. Obama said the decision to go to Hawaii was easy to make, telling CBS that he "got there too late" when his mother died of ovarian cancer in 1995 at 53, and wanted to make sure "that I don't make the same mistake twice." The Kansas-born Dunham and her husband, Stanley, raised their grandson for several years so he could attend school in Honolulu while their daughter and her second husband lived overseas. Her influence on Obama's manner and the way he viewed the world was substantial, the candidate himself told millions watching him accept his party's nomination in Denver in August. "She's the one who taught me about hard work," he said. "She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me." Obama's nickname for his grandmother was "Toot," a version of the Hawaiian word for grandmother, tutu. Many of his speeches describe her working on a bomber assembly line during World War II.

Madelyn and Stanley Dunham married in 1940, a few weeks before she graduated from high school. Their daughter, Stanley Ann, was born in 1942. After several moves to and from California, Texas, Washington and Kansas, Stanley Dunham's job landed the family in Hawaii. It was there that Stanley Ann later met and fell in love with Obama's father, a Kenyan named Barack Hussein Obama Sr. They had met in Russian class at the University of Hawaii. Their son was born in August 1961, but the marriage didn't last long. She later married an Indonesian, Lolo Soetoro, another university student she met in Hawaii. Obama moved to Indonesia with his mother and stepfather at age 6. But in 1971, her mother sent him back to Hawaii to live with her parents. He stayed with the Dunhams until he graduated from high school in 1979. In his autobiography, Obama wrote fondly of playing basketball on a court below his grandparents' 10th-floor Honolulu apartment, and looking up to see his grandmother watching.

It was the same apartment Obama visited on annual holiday trips to Hawaii, a weeklong vacation from his campaign in August, and his pre-election visit in October. Family members said his grandmother could not travel because of her health. Madelyn Dunham, who took university classes but to her chagrin never earned a degree, nonetheless rose from a secretarial job at the Bank of Hawaii to become one of the state's first female bank vice presidents. "Every morning, she woke up at 5 a.m. and changed from the frowsy muumuus she wore around the apartment into a tailored suit and high-heeled pumps," Obama wrote. After her health took a turn for the worse, her brother said on Oct. 21 that she had already lived long enough to see her "Barry" achieve what she'd wanted for him. "I think she thinks she was important in raising a fine young man," Charles Payne, 83, said in a brief telephone interview from his Chicago home. "I doubt if it would occur to her that he would go this far this fast. But she's enjoyed watching it." Stanley Dunham died in 1992, while Obama's mother died in 1995. His father is also deceased.

When Obama was young, he and his grandmother toured the United States by Greyhound bus, stopping at the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park, Disneyland and Chicago, where Obama would years later settle. It was an incident during his teenage years that became one of Obama's most vivid memories of Toot. She had been aggressively panhandled by a man and she wanted her husband to take her to work. When Obama asked why, his grandfather said Madelyn Dunham was bothered because the panhandler was black. The words hit the biracial Obama "like a fist in my stomach," he wrote later. He was sure his grandparents loved him deeply. "And yet," he added, "I knew that men who might easily have been my brothers could still inspire their rawest fears." Obama referred to the incident again when he addressed race in a speech in March during a controversy over his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. "I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother," he said. Dunham was "a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world but who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her on the street." Still, much of who Obama is comes from his grandmother, said his half sister.

"From our grandmother, he gets his pragmatism, his levelheadedness, his ability to stay centered in the eye of the story," she told The Associated Press. "His sensible, no-nonsense (side) is inherited from her." Madelyn Lee Payne was born to Rolla and Leona Payne in October, 1922, in Peru, Kan., but lived much of her childhood in nearby Augusta. She was the oldest of four children, and she loved to read everything from James Hilton's "Lost Horizon" to Agatha Christie's "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd." Dunham and her husband were "vicious" bridge players, according to her brother Jack. After retirement, the two of them would take island cruises and do little but play bridge and a more difficult version called duplicate bridge.

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press Madelyn Payne Dunham, Grandmother of Barack Obama, Dies at 86 | URBANE PERSPECTIVES Home › Uncategorized › Madelyn Payne Dunham, Grandmother of Barack Obama, Dies at 86 Madelyn Payne Dunham, Grandmother of Barack Obama, Dies at 86 Presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama’s grandmother has died after a courageous battle with cancer. The Associated Press filed this report late Monday: HONOLULU (AP) — Barack Obama’s grandmother, whose personality and bearing shaped much of the life of the Democratic presidential contender, has died, Obama announced Monday, one day before the election. Madelyn Payne Dunham was 86. Obama announced the news from the campaign trail in Charlotte, N.C. The joint statement with his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng said Dunham died late Sunday night after a battle with cancer. “She’s gone home,” Obama said as tens of thousands of rowdy supporters at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte grew silent in an evening drizzle. “And she died peacefully in her sleep with my sister at her side. And so there is great joy as well as tears.

I’m not going to talk about it too long because it is hard for me to talk about.” But he said he wanted people to know a little about her – that she lived through the Great Depression and World War II, working the latter on a bomber assembly line with a baby at home and a husband serving his country. He said she was humble and plain spoken, one of the “quiet heroes that we have all across America” working hard and hoping to see their children and grandchildren thrive. “That’s what we’re fighting for,” Obama said. Obama learned of Dunham’s death Monday morning while he was campaigning in Jacksonville, Fla. He went ahead with campaign appearances. The family said a private ceremony would be held later. “So many of us were hoping and praying that his grandmother would have the opportunity to witness her grandson become our next president,” said Hawaii state Rep. Marcus Oshiro, an Obama supporter. “What a bittersweet victory it will be for him. Wow.” Republican John McCain issued condolences to his opponent. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to them as they remember and celebrate the life of someone who had such a profound impact in their lives,” the statement by John and Cindy McCain said.

Last month, Obama took a break from campaigning and flew to Hawaii to be with Dunham as her health declined. Obama said the decision to go to Hawaii was easy to make, telling CBS that he “got there too late” when his mother died of ovarian cancer in 1995 at 53, and wanted to make sure “that I don’t make the same mistake twice.” Outside the apartment building where Dunham died, reporters and TV cameras lined the sidewalk as two police officers were posted near the elevator. Signs hanging in the apartment lobby warned the public to keep out. The Kansas-born Dunham and her husband, Stanley, raised their grandson for several years so he could attend school in Honolulu while their daughter and her second husband lived overseas. Her influence on Obama’s manner and the way he viewed the world was substantial, the candidate himself told millions watching him accept his party’s nomination in Denver in August. “She’s the one who taught me about hard work,” he said. “She’s the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life.

She poured everything she had into me.” Michelle Obama’s voice choked with emotion during a campaign appearance in Colorado as she asked people to remember the woman her husband called “Toot,” a version of the Hawaiian word for grandmother, tutu. “Say a prayer for Toot and thank her for raising Barack Obama. I think she did an amazing job,” Obama told about 2,500 people at a suburban Denver high school gym. Madelyn and Stanley Dunham married in 1940, a few weeks before she graduated from high school. Their daughter, Stanley Ann, was born in 1942. After several moves to and from California, Texas, Washington and Kansas, Stanley Dunham’s job landed the family in Hawaii. It was there that Stanley Ann later met and fell in love with Obama’s father, a Kenyan named Barack Hussein Obama. They had met in Russian class at the University of Hawaii. Their son was born in August 1961, but the marriage didn’t last long. She later married an Indonesian, Lolo Soetoro, another university student she met in Hawaii. Obama moved to Indonesia with his mother and stepfather at age 6.

But in 1971, her mother sent him back to Hawaii to live with her parents. He stayed with the Dunhams until he graduated from high school in 1979. In his autobiography, Obama wrote fondly of playing basketball on a court below his grandparents’ 10th-floor Honolulu apartment, and looking up to see his grandmother watching. It was the same apartment Obama visited on annual holiday trips to Hawaii, a weeklong vacation from his campaign in August, and his pre-election visit in October. Family members said his grandmother could not travel because of her health. Madelyn Dunham, who took university classes but to her chagrin never earned a degree, nonetheless rose from a secretarial job at the Bank of Hawaii to become one of the state’s first female bank vice presidents. “Every morning, she woke up at 5 a.m. and changed from the frowsy muumuus she wore around the apartment into a tailored suit and high-heeled pumps,” Obama wrote. After her health took a turn for the worse, her brother said on Oct. 21 that she had already lived long enough to see her “Barry” achieve what she’d wanted for him.

“I think she thinks she was important in raising a fine young man,” Charles Payne, 83, said in a brief telephone interview from his Chicago home. “I doubt if it would occur to her that he would go this far this fast. But she’s enjoyed watching it.” Stanley Dunham died in 1992, while Obama’s mother died in 1995. His father is also deceased. When Obama was young, he and his grandmother toured the United States by Greyhound bus, stopping at the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park, Disneyland and Chicago, where Obama would years later settle. It was an incident during his teenage years that became one of Obama’s most vivid memories of Toot. She had been aggressively panhandled by a man and she wanted her husband to take her to work. When Obama asked why, his grandfather said Madelyn Dunham was bothered because the panhandler was black. The words hit the biracial Obama “like a fist in my stomach,” he wrote later. He was sure his grandparents loved him deeply.

“And yet,” he added, “I knew that men who might easily have been my brothers could still inspire their rawest fears.” Obama referred to the incident again when he addressed race in a speech in March during a controversy over his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. “I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother,” he said. Dunham was “a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world but who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her on the street.” Still, much of who Obama is comes from his grandmother, said his half sister. “From our grandmother, he gets his pragmatism, his levelheadedness, his ability to stay centered in the eye of the story,” she told The Associated Press. “His sensible, no-nonsense (side) is inherited from her.” Madelyn Lee Payne was born to Rolla and Leona Payne in October 1922 in Peru, Kan., but lived much of her childhood in nearby Augusta.

She was the oldest of four children, and she loved to read everything from James Hilton’s “Lost Horizon” to Agatha Christie’s “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.” Courtesy of the Associated Press Staff Writers Obama's Grandmother Dies Before Election Day : NPR Obama's Grandmother Dies Before Election Day Embed Embed Obama's Grandmother Dies Before Election Day Obama's Grandmother Dies Before Election Day Embed Embed November 4, 20086:00 AM ET Allison Keyes Barack Obama's maternal grandmother has died of cancer in Hawaii. Madelyn Payne Dunham was 86. The Democratic presidential nominee says Dunham was the cornerstone of the family and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength and humility. RENEE MONTAGNE, host: As he came to the final day of his historic presidential run, the saddest of news for Barack Obama. His grandmother had passed away. Madelyn Payne Dunham died of cancer in Hawaii. He and his family called her Toot, short for tutu, the traditional Hawaiian term for grandmother. Obama spoke of her last night again as he campaigned, this time emotionally. And he issued a statement.

He called her a woman with extraordinary accomplishments, strength, and humility and one of the cornerstones of his life. NPR's Allison Keyes has this remembrance. ALLISON KEYES: Dunham had been too ill to appear with her grandson on the campaign trail, though he spoke of her often, particularly at crucial moments in his political career. (Soundbite of Obama Democratic Nomination Victory Speech) Senator BARACK OBAMA (Democrat, Illinois; Democratic Presidential Candidate): Tonight I can stand here and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for the president of the United States of America. (Soundbite of crowd ovation) KEYES: But on that historic night in June, he paused before his prepared speech to acknowledge his grandma. Senator OBAMA: Thank you to my grandmother who helped raise me and is sitting in Hawaii somewhere right now because she can't travel, but who poured everything she had into me and who helped to make me the man I am today. Tonight is for her. (Soundbite of crowd ovation) KEYES: Obama also discussed his grandmother in his March speech about race, where he talked about growing up in a mixed-race household.

The speech was a response to controversy over racial remarks by Obama's former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. (Soundbite of Obama speech) Senator OBAMA: I can no more disown him than I can disown my white grandmother, a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her by on the street and who, on more than one occasion, has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe. These people are part of me. KEYES: Obama was born in Hawaii, the son of a Kenyan man and a white Kansas woman. When he was 11, his mother, Ann Dunham, sent him to live with his grandparents. In Honolulu, Obama spent years living in a two-bedroom apartment with his grandmother and grandfather, Stanley Dunham. During World War II, Madelyn Payne Dunham worked on a bomber assembly line. She also worked her way up to vice president at a local bank after the war. With just two weeks to go before the presidential election, Obama left the campaign trail to visit her in Honolulu.

She had recently broken her hip, and Obama told ABC visiting her was important to him. (Soundbite of ABC interview with Barack Obama) Senator OBAMA: You know, one of the things I want to make sure of is that I had a chance to sit down with her and talk to her. She's still alert, and she's still got all her faculties. And I want to make sure that that I don't miss that opportunity right now. KEYES: Obama has said the biggest regret of his life was not making it to his mother's bedside before she died in 1995. He has said he wouldn't make that mistake again. Michelle Obama, explaining her husband's absence from the trail, talked about Dunham's importance to him and his family. Ms. MICHELLE OBAMA: He said, you know, I got my toughness from Toot, you know, because she taught him with her quiet confidence and that love and support that he could do anything, just deep love and admiration. KEYES: In a rare 2004 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Dunham said she supposed she had provided some stability in Obama's life. Madelyn Payne Dunham was 86 years old.

MONTAGNE: NPR's Allison Keyes. It's NPR News. Copyright © 2008 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc. , an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Madelyn Dunham, Obama's Grandmother, Dies BBC NEWS | Americas | US Elections 2008 | Obituary: Madelyn Dunham Printable version Obituary: Madelyn Dunham Barack Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died of cancer on the eve of the US presidential election. She was a central figure in the early life of the Democratic candidate. Mr Obama's childhood was largely spent in the care of his grandparents Mrs Dunham and her late husband Stanley raised the young Barack in Hawaii for many years while his mother, who had remarried, lived abroad.

Known within the family as "Toot", a shortened form of the Hawaiian word "tutu" meaning grandmother, she gave him a stable home and the traditional American values brought from her own Midwestern childhood. She was also a trailblazer in her own right, having risen from a lowly position to be one of the first women vice-presidents of the Bank of Hawaii. In a major speech on race he gave in March, Mr Obama described her as "a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world". She was also the "white grandmother", he said, whom he could no more disown than he could his controversial African-American pastor, the Rev Jeremiah Wright. She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength and humility Barack Obama and Maya Soetoro-Ng The politics of bereavement This was despite her being "a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her by on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe".

On the campaign trail he made references to how the 86-year-old had instilled in him her belief in hard work, accountability and self-reliance. Mrs Dunham was living in Honolulu, with Mr Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetero-Ng, until she lost her battle with cancer on 3 November 2008. In a joint statement announcing her death, Mr Obama and his sister said: "She 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." The news came 10 days after Mr Obama broke off campaigning in order to pay a last visit to Mrs Dunham in Hawaii. Common sense Born Madelyn Payne in 1922, the daughter of a Midwest oil company clerk, she was raised in Kansas and attended college at the University of Washington. In 1940 she married Stanley Dunham, described by Mr Obama as something of a rebel, and during World War II worked as an aircraft inspector for Boeing. She later studied at the University of California in Berkeley. The couple moved to Honolulu in about 1960 with their daughter Ann.

Still in her teens, Ann would soon meet Mr Obama's father, a student from Kenya at the University of Hawaii, fall pregnant and marry him. After the marriage failed, Mrs Dunham and her husband helped raise their grandson, making financial sacrifices to send him to a better school. In his autobiography, Dreams from My Father, Mr Obama describes his grandmother as "suspicious of overwrought sentiments or overblown claims, content with common sense". She was someone who "taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland", he said in a campaign advertisement this year. Mrs Dunham largely shunned the media spotlight turned on the family by Mr Obama's emergence on to the national stage, granting few interviews. But speaking to David Mendell of the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper for his book on Mr Obama, From Promise to Power, she talked of trying to instil her own work ethic in her grandson. "I'll admit that I did give him a few kicks in the pants," she told Mendell. "Not many, but a few." Following his mother's death aged 52 from cancer, Mr Obama was left all the more reliant on Mrs Dunham for support from that side of his family.

Announcing that Mr Obama was to break off his general election campaign for two days in October to visit his grandmother, aide Robert Gibbs said she had "always been one of the most important people in his life". Madelyn Dunham - Homepage Madelyn Dunham October 26, 1922 - November 02, 2008 HONOLULU (AP) - Barack Obama's grandmother, whose personality and bearing shaped much of the life of the Democratic presidential contender, has died, Obama announced Monday, one day before the election. Madelyn Payne Dunham was 86. Obama announced the news from the campaign trail in Charlotte, N.C. The joint statement with his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng said Dunham died peacefully late Sunday night after a battle with cancer. They said: "She 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." Obama learned of her death Monday morning while he was campaigning in Jacksonville, Fla. He planned to go ahead with campaign appearances. The family said a private ceremony would be held later.

Last month, Obama took a break from campaigning and flew to Hawaii to be with Dunham as her health declined. Obama said the decision to go to Hawaii was easy to make, telling CBS that he "got there too late" when his mother died of ovarian cancer in 1995 at 53, and wanted to make sure "that I don't make the same mistake twice." The Kansas-born Dunham and her husband, Stanley, raised their grandson for several years so he could attend school in Honolulu while their daughter and her second husband lived overseas. Her influence on Obama's manner and the way he viewed the world was substantial, the candidate himself told millions watching him accept his party's nomination in Denver in August. "She's the one who taught me about hard work," he said. "She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me." Obama's nickname for his grandmother was "Toot," a version of the Hawaiian word for grandmother, tutu. Many of his speeches describe her working on a bomber assembly line during World War II.

Madelyn and Stanley Dunham married in 1940, a few weeks before she graduated from high school. Their daughter, Stanley Ann, was born in 1942. After several moves to and from California, Texas, Washington and Kansas, Stanley Dunham's job landed the family in Hawaii. It was there that Stanley Ann later met and fell in love with Obama's father, a Kenyan named Barack Hussein Obama Sr. They had met in Russian class at the University of Hawaii. Their son was born in August 1961, but the marriage didn't last long. She later married an Indonesian, Lolo Soetoro, another university student she met in Hawaii. Obama moved to Indonesia with his mother and stepfather at age 6. But in 1971, her mother sent him back to Hawaii to live with her parents. He stayed with the Dunhams until he graduated from high school in 1979. In his autobiography, Obama wrote fondly of playing basketball on a court below his grandparents' 10th-floor Honolulu apartment, and looking up to see his grandmother watching.

It was the same apartment Obama visited on annual holiday trips to Hawaii, a weeklong vacation from his campaign in August, and his pre-election visit in October. Family members said his grandmother could not travel because of her health. Madelyn Dunham, who took university classes but to her chagrin never earned a degree, nonetheless rose from a secretarial job at the Bank of Hawaii to become one of the state's first female bank vice presidents. "Every morning, she woke up at 5 a.m. and changed from the frowsy muumuus she wore around the apartment into a tailored suit and high-heeled pumps," Obama wrote. After her health took a turn for the worse, her brother said on Oct. 21 that she had already lived long enough to see her "Barry" achieve what she'd wanted for him. "I think she thinks she was important in raising a fine young man," Charles Payne, 83, said in a brief telephone interview from his Chicago home. "I doubt if it would occur to her that he would go this far this fast. But she's enjoyed watching it." Stanley Dunham died in 1992, while Obama's mother died in 1995. His father is also deceased.

When Obama was young, he and his grandmother toured the United States by Greyhound bus, stopping at the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park, Disneyland and Chicago, where Obama would years later settle. It was an incident during his teenage years that became one of Obama's most vivid memories of Toot. She had been aggressively panhandled by a man and she wanted her husband to take her to work. When Obama asked why, his grandfather said Madelyn Dunham was bothered because the panhandler was black. The words hit the biracial Obama "like a fist in my stomach," he wrote later. He was sure his grandparents loved him deeply. "And yet," he added, "I knew that men who might easily have been my brothers could still inspire their rawest fears." Obama referred to the incident again when he addressed race in a speech in March during a controversy over his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. "I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother," he said. Dunham was "a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world but who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her on the street." Still, much of who Obama is comes from his grandmother, said his half sister.

"From our grandmother, he gets his pragmatism, his levelheadedness, his ability to stay centered in the eye of the story," she told The Associated Press. "His sensible, no-nonsense (side) is inherited from her." Madelyn Lee Payne was born to Rolla and Leona Payne in October, 1922, in Peru, Kan., but lived much of her childhood in nearby Augusta. She was the oldest of four children, and she loved to read everything from James Hilton's "Lost Horizon" to Agatha Christie's "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd." Dunham and her husband were "vicious" bridge players, according to her brother Jack. After retirement, the two of them would take island cruises and do little but play bridge and a more difficult version called duplicate bridge. Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press

Question: In November 2008, Madelin Payne Dunham died aged 86. Who is her famous grandson?
Answer: BARACK OBAMA