Madelyn Dunham

Madelyn Payne Dunham (born October 1922, née Madelyn Lee Payne) is the maternal grandmother of United States Democratic Party Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama and raised Obama in her Hawaii home from age 10.

Madelyn Payne was born in the oil boomtown of Augusta, Kansas, 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. She married Barack Obama's grandfather, Stanley Armour Dunham, on the spring weekend of the annual junior-senior banquet in 1940, Madelyn's senior year.

While Stanley Dunham went off to serve in World War II, Madelyn worked on a Boeing assembly line. She gave birth to Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, known as Ann Dunham, in Fort Leavenworth.

While Obama's mother Ann was pursuing projects around the world, Madelyn and Stanley raised Obama so that he could attend the Punahou School in Hawaii.

In his memoir, Dreams From My Father, Obama described his grandmother as "suspicious of overwrought sentiments or overblown claims, content with common sense." He also called her "a trailblazer of sorts, the first woman vice-president of a local bank."

Madelyn Payne Dunham currently lives in Oahu, Hawaii. Unlike Barack Obama's paternal step-grandmother Sarah Obama, Madelyn Dunham has not given any interviews since 2004, on the occasion of Barack Obama's keynote address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

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