Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham (/ˈdʌnəm/ DUN-əm; October 26, 1922[1] – November 2, 2008) was an American banker and the maternal grandmother of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States.
[2] [3] In Barack Obama's memoir, Dreams From My Father, he describes his great-grandparents as "stern Methodist parents who did not believe in drinking, playing cards, or dancing."
[5] While in Wichita, she met Stanley Dunham from El Dorado, Kansas,[5] and the two married on May 5, 1940, the night of Madelyn's senior prom.
Her brother Charlie Payne was part of the 89th Infantry Division, which liberated the Nazi concentration camp at Ohrdruf, a subcamp of Buchenwald,[6] a fact Barack Obama has referred to in speeches.
[8] With Madelyn and Stanley Dunham both working full-time, the family moved to Berkeley, California, Ponca City, Oklahoma,[9] Vernon, Texas,[10] El Dorado, Kansas, Seattle, Washington and settled in Mercer Island, Washington, where Ann Dunham graduated from Mercer Island High School.
[12] Madelyn and Stanley Dunham raised their grandson, Barack Obama from age 10 while his mother and step-father were living in Jakarta, Indonesia, so he could go to school in Hawaii.
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 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.
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".
[19]On March 20, 2008, in a radio interview on Philadelphia's WIP, Obama explained this remark by saying: The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity – she doesn't.
[20][21]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 other media outlets.
[22][23][24][25] 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.
[26] 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".
[27] 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".
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".
[34] 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.
Robert Perry's wife, Sarah Hoskins, was also born in Wales and immigrated to Delaware County, Ohio as a young child.