Obama's grandmother, important in his life, reported to be 'gravely ill'

By: JournalNow Staff | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 22, 2008

Madelyn Payne Dunham, the grandmother of presidential candidate Barack Obama, gave Obama a place to call home when he was young, as his mother traveled the world. When he needed money for school, she went without new clothes to help pay his tuition.

And when Obama, an Illinois Senator, decided to run for the Democratic presidential nomination, Dunham provided the "Kansas-heartland" pedigree he needed to appeal to conservative white voters -- and a personal anecdote about racial prejudice that helped the man with the foreign name and Ivy League resume connect with blacks.

Dunham, an 85-year-old former bank executive in Hawaii, is said to be "gravely ill" after falling and breaking her hip, and some reports suggest that she might not live to see the results of the Nov. 4 election. Whatever happens, she has already lived long enough to see her "Barry" achieve what she had wanted for him, her brother says.

"I think she thinks she was important in raising a fine young man," Charles Payne, 83, said in a brief telephone interview yesterday 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."

Obama's campaign said Monday that he had canceled rallies later this week to spend time with his grandmother. Payne said that Dunham was hospitalized briefly but is back home in her Honolulu apartment, where Obama's sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, cares for her.

Although Obama made his mark thousands of miles from the Honolulu apartment where Dunham helped raise him, Obama and others credit Dunham -- whose birthday is Sunday -- with instilling in him an appreciation for education and hard work, and with setting an example of thrift, practicality and tolerance.

"I think there's nobody more important than her, except his mother, in shaping his character," said David Mendell, who interviewed Dunham in 2004 for the Chicago Tribune and later wrote the book, Obama: From Promise to Power.

Mendell said that Obama got "that dreamer quality" seen in his speeches from his late mother. But when he has to decide whom to trust in politics, "that's his grandmother's practicality coming out in him."

Some reports have Dunham close to death. Payne declined to speculate on how long his sister might live.