The furniture salesman who raised a future president in Honolulu
In short: Before he was a global leader, Barack Obama was a ten-year-old boy living in Hawaii. He was raised there by his maternal grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, following an unspoken pact to keep his troubles out of sight while his mother lived in Indonesia.
Stanley Armour Dunham’s life was marked by significant upheaval from a young age. After finding his mother's body following her suicide in 1926, the eight-year-old was sent by his father to live with maternal grandparents in El Dorado, Kansas, alongside his brother, Ralph Waldo Emerson Dunham, Jr. This early instability preceded a rebellious adolescence characterized by drifting between cities like Chicago and California.
During World War II, Dunham served as a private in the U.S. Army, specifically with the 1830th Ordnance Supply and Maintenance Company, Aviation. His unit provided support to the Ninth Air Force during D-Day, and he was deployed to France six weeks after the invasion. Following his discharge on August 30, 1945, Dunham pursued studies at the University of California, Berkeley, before eventually returning to Kansas to manage a furniture store.
The family eventually relocated to Seattle, Washington, where Dunham worked for companies such as Standard-Grunbaum Furniture and Doces Majestic Furniture. This move preceded their final relocation to Honolulu, Hawaii, where Dunham found a new furniture sales opportunity. It was in Hawaii that he and his wife, Madelyn Payne Dunham, would eventually raise their granddaughter, Barack Obama, from the age of 10.
Dunham’s lineage connects him to a vast array of historical figures. He is a direct descendant of Jonathan Singletary Dunham, who established the first gristmill in New Jersey after leaving the Plymouth Colony. Furthermore, Dunham is a sixth cousin, four times removed, to the legendary Wild Bill Hickok through their common ancestor, Jacob Dunham.
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