Madelyn Dunham
Template:TOCnestleft Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham was the maternal grandmother of Barack Obama. she was the wife of Stanley Armour Dunham and the mother of Stanley Ann Dunham.
Early life
Madelyn Payne was born in the oil boomtown of Augusta, to stern Methodist parents who did not believe in drinking, playing cards or dancing. She was one of the best students in the graduating class of 1940[1].
Meeting Stanley
Four years older, Stanley Armour Dunham lived 17 miles east, in El Dorado. In 1920, El Dorado, an oil town, with a population of 12,000, seemed to exist solely for the purpose of drilling holes in the ground.
The Dunhams were Baptists. Unlike the Paynes, Stanley Dunham did not come from the white-collar crowd. Gregarious, friendly, challenging and loud, "he was such a loose wheel at times," said Clarence Kerns, from the El Dorado class of 1935. Others who knew Dunham described him as a salesman "who could charm the legs off a couch."
Madelyn Payne secretly married Stanley Armour Dunham on the spring weekend of the annual junior-senior banquet in 1940, Madelyn's senior year, several weeks before graduation, according to friends. Continuing to live with her parents, Madelyn didn't tell them about her marriage until she got her diploma in June.
Married life
When World War II came, Stanley enlisted in the Army. Madelyn became a Rosie-the-Riveter at Boeing Co.'s B-29 production plant in Wichita. And Stanley Ann Dunham arrived in late November 1942.
The Dunhams were full-time working parents, renters and strugglers in pursuit of the next opportunity. After the war, Madelyn worked in restaurants while Stanley, for a time managed a furniture store on Main Street in El Dorado[2].
Seattle
After the War, the Dunham's lived in Berkeley, California, for two years, Ponca City, Oklahoma, for two years, and Wichita Falls, Texas., for three years before they ventured to the Seattle area[3].
The Dunhams moved to a bigger opportunity in 1955 -- a large store in downtown Seattle called Standard-Grunbaum Furniture at the corner of 2nd Avenue and Pine Street. "First in Furniture, Second at Pine," read the Yellow Pages ad in the Seattle telephone directory.
Madelyn, found a job in a banking real estate escrow office, and the family settled into a two-bedroom place in a quiet corner of the Shorewood Apartments, nestled near the lakeshore in view of the Cascade Mountains.
But consistent with the 1950s, there were undercurrents of turmoil. In 1955, the chairman of the Mercer Island school board, John Stenhouse, testified before the House Un-American Activities Subcommittee that he had been a member of the Communist Party USA.
At Mercer High School, two teachers -- Val Foubert and Jim Wichterman -- generated regular parental thunderstorms by teaching their students to challenge societal norms and question all manner of authority. Foubert taught English. His texts included "Atlas Shrugged," "The Organization Man," "The Hidden Persuaders," "1984" and the writings of H.L. Mencken.
- Wichterman taught philosophy. The hallway between the two classes was known as "anarchy alley," and students pondered the challenging notions of Wichterman's teachings, including such philosophers as Sartre and Kierkegaard. He also touched the societal third rail of the 1950s: He questioned the existence of God. And he didn't stop there.
- "I had them read 'The Communist Manifesto,' and the parents went nuts," said Wichterman, adding that parents also didn't want any discussions about "anything to do with sex," religion and theology. The parental protests were known as "mothers' marches."
- "The kids started questioning things that their folks thought shouldn't be questioned -- religion, politics, parental authority," said John Hunt, a classmate. "And a lot of parents didn't like that, and they tried to get them [Wichterman and Foubert] fired."
Madelyn and Stanley shed their Methodist and Baptist upbringing and began attending Sunday services at the East Shore Unitarian Church in nearby Bellevue.
"In the 1950s, this was sometimes known as 'the little Red church on the hill,' " said Peter Luton, the church's senior minister, referring to the effects of McCarthyism.
- For Stanley Ann, the teachings of Foubert and Wichterman provided an intellectual stimulant and an affirmation that there indeed was an interesting life beyond high school dances, football games and all-night slumber party chatter.
- Their high school class was an in-between generation. The Beat generation had passed, and the 1960s era of protest was yet to begin. Classmates of Dunham -- Wall, Blake, Hunt -- felt they were on the cusp of societal change, the distant early warning of the '60s struggles over civil rights, women's rights and war.
- "If you were concerned about something going wrong in the world, Stanley would know about it first," said Chip Wall, who described her as "a fellow traveler. . . . We were liberals before we knew what liberals were[4]."
Hawaii
The Dunhams lived in the Makiki district of Honolulu, Hawaii.
After the marriage of her daughter Stanley Ann Dunham to Barak Obama Sr. fell apart, the young Barack Obama spent four years with his mother and stepfather in Jakarta, Indonesia before returning to Honolulu at age ten to live with Madelyn and her husband, Stanley Armour Dunham.
Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood of Hawaii, on February 16, 2013, held "our most successful gala ever" at the magnificent Monarch Room of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, attended by over 400 political and community leaders.
During dinner, Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng accepted the Bette Takahashi Service Award given to Madelyn Dunham, President Barack Obama’s grandmother, posthumously. Ms. Dunham served on the Board of Directors of Planned Parenthood of Hawaii starting in 1976.
The Bette Takahashi Service Award is given in recognition of Ms. Dunham’s commitment to women’s rights, reproductive freedom, and her enormous positive influence on our President in his formative years. During the presentation, guests watched a tribute video from President Obama, Love and Values of a Quiet Hero , produced by Rai Saint Chu, Gala Advisory Committee Chair.
Rep. Marilyn Lee, Governor Neil Abercrombie, Senator Mazie Hirono, Senator Brian Schatz, and Mayor Kirk Caldwell attended the event. Co-Chairs of the event, Chivas Nousianen and Karen McKinnie, were in attendance, as were Honorary Co-Chairs Dr. Nancie Caraway and Dr. Linda Schatz.[5]