Stanley Armour Dunham (March 23, 1918February 8, 1992) was the maternal grandfather 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, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

, 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 executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

. He and his wife Madelyn Payne Dunham raised Obama from the age of 10 in

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 island ...

, Hawaii.

Early life and education

Dunham was born in

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 ...

, the younger of two sons to Ralph Waldo Emerson Dunham, Sr. (December 25, 1894, Sumner County, Kansas – October 4, 1970, Wichita, Kansas) and Ruth Lucille Armour (September 1, 1900, Illinois – November 25, 1926, Wichita, Kansas). His father's ancestors settled in Kempton, Indiana, in the 1840s, before relocating to Kansas. His parents were married on October 3, 1915, at a home on South Saint Francis St. in Wichita, and opened ''The Travelers' Cafe'' on William Street situated between the old firehouse and the old Wichita City Hotel. On November 25, 1926, at age 8, Dunham discovered his mother's body after she had committed suicide. Subsequently, Dunham's father placed him and his older brother Ralph Waldo Emerson Dunham, Jr. in the care of their maternal grandparents in El Dorado, Kansas. A rebellious teenager, Dunham allegedly punched his high school principal and spent some time drifting, hopping rail cars to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, and back again. He married Madelyn Lee Payne on May 5, 1940, the night of her

senior prom A promenade dance, commonly called a prom, is a dance party for high school students. It may be offered in semi-formal black tie or informal suit for boys, and evening gowns for girls. This event is typically held near the end of the school ye ...

Later life

World War II

Dunham enlisted as a private in the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

on January 18, 1942, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and served in the

European Theatre of World War II The European theatre of World War II was one of the two main theatres of combat during World War II. It saw heavy fighting across Europe for almost six years, starting with Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and ending with the ...

with the 1830th Ordnance Supply and Maintenance Company, Aviation. During D-Day, this unit helped to support the 9th Air Force. Dunham and his brother were deployed to France six weeks after D-Day. Before the Invasion of Normandy, the brothers once met accidentally as Stanley Dunham went in search of rations at a hotel in London, where his brother Ralph Dunham happened to be staying. Madelyn Dunham gave birth to their daughter Stanley Ann Dunham, who was later known as Ann, at St. Francis Hospital in Wichita on November 29, 1942. During the war, Madelyn Dunham worked 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 F ...

assembly line in Wichita.

Post-World War II

After two years of military service in Europe (1943–1945), Dunham was discharged from the U.S. Army on August 30, 1945. After the war, 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 E ...

so he could pursue study at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

and then eventually back to El Dorado, Kansas, where Dunham managed a furniture store. In 1955, after the Dunhams moved to

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...

, Dunham worked as a salesman for the Standard-Grunbaum Furniture Company, and his daughter Ann attended middle school. The family lived in an apartment in the Wedgwood Estates in the Wedgwood, Seattle neighborhood. In 1956 they moved to the Shorewood Apartments on

Mercer Island 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 to it ...

, a Seattle suburb. Ann attended high school there, and they stayed until she graduated in 1960. In 1957, Dunham started working for the Doces Majestic Furniture Company.

Hawaii

The family 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 island o ...

, where Dunham found a better furniture store opportunity. Madelyn Dunham started working at the Bank of Hawaii in 1960, and was promoted as one of the bank's first female vice presidents in 1970. In

's memoir, '' Dreams From My Father'', he wrote, "One of my earliest memories is of sitting on my grandfather's shoulders as the astronauts from one of the Apollo missions arrived at Hickam Air Force Base after a successful splashdown". At 10 years old, Barack Obama moved in with the Dunhams in Honolulu to attend school in the U.S. while his mother and stepfather Lolo Soetoro were living in Jakarta, Indonesia. His mother 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".

Death

Dunham died in

on February 8, 1992 and is interred in the Punchbowl National Cemetery.

Ancestry

*Dunham is a direct descendant of Jonathan Singletary Dunham, a prominent early American settler who left the

Plymouth Colony Plymouth Colony (sometimes Plimouth) was, from 1620 to 1691, the first permanent English colony in New England and the second permanent English colony in North America, after the Jamestown Colony. It was first settled by the passengers on the ...

to build the first

gristmill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that has been separat ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. The most recent native European ancestor was Falmouth Kearney, a farmer who emigrated from

Moneygall Moneygall () is a small village on the border of counties Offaly and Tipperary, in Ireland. It is situated on the R445 road between Dublin and Limerick. There were 313 people living in the village as of the 2016 census. Moneygall has a Catholic ...

, County Offaly, Ireland, during the Great Irish Famine and settled in

Jefferson Township, Tipton County, Indiana Jefferson Township is one of six townships in Tipton County, Indiana, United States. As of the 2010 census, its population was 1,422 and it contained 616 housing units. History Squatters were the first white settlers in the area. Barnett Stepp w ...

, United States. Kearney's youngest daughter, Mary Ann (Kearney) Dunham, was Stanley Dunham's paternal grandmother. Stanley Dunham's distant cousins include six U.S. presidents - and another president who is Dunham's grandson:

James Madison James Madison Jr. (March 16, 1751June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father. He served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for h ...

Harry Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...

, Lyndon Johnson,

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1 ...

, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, plus

, his grandson. Through a common ancestor,

Mareen Duvall Mareen Duvall (1625–1694) was a French Huguenot and an early American settler. Background Mareen Duvall was born in 1625, in Nantes, France and was originally named Marin Duval. On August 28, 1650, Duvall emigrated as an Indentured Servan ...

, a wealthy

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

merchant who emigrated to

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

in the 1650s, Dunham is related to former Vice-President Dick Cheney (an eighth cousin once removed). Through Duvall and another common ancestor, Hans Gutknecht, a German Swiss from Bischwiller, Alsace whose three sons resettled in Germantown, Pennsylvania as well as the Kentucky frontier in the mid-18th century, Dunham is President Harry S. Truman's fourth cousin, twice removed. Dunham and

Wild Bill Hickok James Butler Hickok (May 27, 1837August 2, 1876), better known as "Wild Bill" Hickok, was a folk hero of the American Old West known for his life on the frontier as a soldier, scout, lawman, gambler, showman, and actor, and for his involvement ...

are sixth cousins, four times removed, through Jacob Dunham.Boston Genealogical Society Confirms Obama and "Wild Bill" Hickok Are Cousins
New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2008-07-30. Retrieved January 13, 2013.

References

External links

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20081221001608/http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20081115/NEWS01/811150360/1001/localnewsfront "Remembering Madelyn Dunham"

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 and In ...

, November 15, 2008, includes photo gallery and memorial service video {{DEFAULTSORT:Dunham, Stanley Armour 1918 births 1992 deaths People from Wichita, Kansas United States Army personnel of World War II American people of Irish descent American people of English descent Obama family People from El Dorado, Kansas People from Honolulu Burials in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific United States Army non-commissioned officers