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Grandmother of Barack Obama dies at 86

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Monday, November 3, 2008

Makiki in Downtown Honolulu, the neighborhood where Obama lived with his maternal grandparents.
Image: Gerald Farinas.

Madelyn Dunham, the maternal grandmother of United States 2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama, has died of cancer at 86, just one day before the election.

Dunham, who was born in Peru, Kansas in 1922, helped to raise Obama from the age of 10. She lived in Honolulu, Hawaii for most of her life, where she died peacefully in her apartment shortly before midnight local time.

She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility.

—Barack Obama and sister Maya Soetoro-Ng

"It is with great sadness that we announce that our grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died peacefully after a battle with cancer. She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility," said Obama and his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng in a joint statement to the press.

During his acceptance speech for Democratic presidential nominee he noted her with the words, "She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life... She poured everything she had into me."

Obama took time out from his presidential campaign in October to visit her at her bedside a week before she died.

Obama's opponent John McCain also issued a statement saying his "thoughts and prayers go out" to Obama and his family.

"We offer our deepest condolences to Barack Obama and his family as they grieve the loss of their beloved grandmother. Our thoughts and prayers go out to them as they remember and celebrate the life of someone who had such a profound impact in their lives," said McCain in a statement to the press.



Sources

  Learn more about Madelyn and Stanley Dunham on Wikipedia.
 

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  This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

The text of this article is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License
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