Stanley Ann Dunham

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Stanley Ann Dunham (Anna)

The Dunhams had one daughter, Stanley Ann Dunham (Anna), who was born in Wichita, Kansas, on November 29th, 1942. Stanley Dunham had wanted a son, so when his daughter was born, he named her Stanley Ann Dunham, after himself.

Stanley Ann Dunham as a third grader in Vernon, TX -- 1951

High School

The Dunhams moved to 3206 East Lexington St., Mercer Island, Washington in 1956, after living in an apartment for a year in a nearby Seattle. The lure was the high school that had just opened and the opportunity it offered for their daughter, who was then 13.

For four years on Mercer Island, Stanley Ann Dunham impressed her high-school classmates with a wickedly sharp wit. She was an "intellectual rebel" with a fledgling beatnik sensibility that would eventually take her around the globe.

Stanley Ann Dunham's classmates, many of whom had lived on the island their whole lives, viewed Dunham as a novelty.

"She had a really ironic sense of humor, sort of downbeat and she was a great observer," said Iona Stenhouse, of Seattle, a former classmate. "There was an arched eyebrow, or a smile on her face about the immaturity of us all. I felt at times that Stanley thought we were a bit of a provincial group."

The diversions for Dunham and her class were solidly 1950s vintage: sock hops and sleepovers and the song "Rockin' Robin." Dunham's father drove her and friends to boys basketball games, and would embarrass his daughter with his noisy cheering.

Dunham gravitated toward an intellectual clique. According to former classmate Chip Wall, she caught foreign films at Seattle's only art-house theater, the Ridgemont, and trekked to University District coffee shops like the Encore to talk about jazz, the value of learning from other cultures and the "very dull Eisenhower-ness of our parents."

"We were critiquing America in those days in the same way we are today: The press is dumbed down, education is dumbed down, people don't know anything about geography or the rest of the world," said Wall, who later taught at Mercer Island High and is now retired in Seattle.

"She was not a standard-issue girl. You don't start out life as a girl with a name like Stanley without some sense you are not ordinary."

At Mercer High School, two teachers -- Val Foubert and Jim Wichterman -- generated regular parental thunderstorms by teaching their students to challenge societal norms and question all manner of authority. Foubert, who died recently, taught English. His texts were cutting edge: "Atlas Shrugged," "The Organization Man," "The Hidden Persuaders," "1984" and the acerbic writings of H.L. Mencken. Wichterman taught philosophy.

The hallway between the two classes was known as "anarchy alley," and students pondered the challenging notions of Wichterman's teachings, including such philosophers as Sartre and Kierkegaard. He also touched the societal third rail of the 1950s: He questioned the existence of God. And he didn't stop there. "I had them read 'The Communist Manifesto,' and the parents went nuts," said Wichterman, adding that parents also didn't want any discussions about "anything to do with sex," religion and theology. The parental protests were known as "mothers' marches."

Class Of 1960

Known as Anna, Obama's mother, was a strong-willed, unconventional member of the Mercer Island High School graduating class of 1960. She spent 8th grade through high school there. Here is her application for a Social Security card, submitted when she was 16. Stanley Ann Dunham was issued Social Security number 535-40-8522.

Curious and precocious, Anna was greatly influenced by left-wing and communist teachers in the Mercer Island High School, who had the students read the philosophers Sartre and Kierkegaard, "The Communist Manifesto" and question the existence of God. Anna touted herself as an atheist.

Mercer Island High was a hotbed of pro-Marxist radical teachers. John Stenhouse, board member, testified before the House Un-American Activities Subcommittee that he had been a member of the Communist Party USA and the school has a number of Marxists on its staff. Two teachers at this school, Val Foubert and Jim Wichterman, both Frankfurt School style Marxists, taught a critical theory curriculum to students which included; rejection of societal norms, attacks on Christianity, the traditional family, and assigned readings by Karl Marx. The hallway between Foubert’s and Wichterman classrooms was called "anarchy ally."

Susan Blake, a classmate and former city councilwoman from Mercer Island who long ago changed the infant Barack's messy diaper, said of her friend: "Hers was a mind in full tilt."

Anna gravitated toward an intellectual clique. According to former classmate Chip Wall, she caught foreign films at Seattle's only art-house theater, the Ridgemont, and trekked to University District coffee shops like the Encore to talk about jazz, the value of learning from other cultures and the "very dull Eisenhower-ness of our parents."

"We were critiquing America in those days in the same way we are today: The press is dumbed-down, education is dumbed down, people don't know anything about geography or the rest of the world," said Wall, who later taught at Mercer Island High and is now retired in Seattle.

A high school classmate described Anna as "a fellow traveler. . . . We were liberals before we knew what liberals were."

The descriptive, "fellow traveler," was first applied to non-communists who were inclined toward the views of the Communist Party by Leon Trotsky.

The Au Pair

Toward the end of her high school career, Anna applied to the University of Chicago and received early acceptance. The University of Chicago, with its reputation for intellectual excitement, in the middle of a big city, appealed to Ann's sense of adventure. However, Stanley Dunham didn't want his daughter living on her own, far away from home, at such a young age.

Stanley Ann's graduation from high school is the last documented event for the next four years of which the researcher can be confident, although bits and pieces continue to surface, like this puzzling snippet from "Dreams..."

"I was only sixteen the," she told us as we entered the elevator, "I'd just been accepted to the University of Chicago -- Gramps hadn't told me yet that he would let me go -- and I was there for the summer, working as an au pair."

Chicago? Always Chicago.

University Of Hawaii

On Sept 26,1960 , Stanley Ann began classes at the University of Hawaii, and began an intimate relationship with Senior almost immediately. Dunham, who hadn't had a boyfriend in high school, was seventeen years old and an anthropology student. They met in a Russian-language course at a time when the Russian language was inextricably mixed up with communism.

She spent weekends in discussions that seemed to be, in part, a logical extension of the long coffeehouse sessions in Seattle and the teachings of Wichterman and Foubert, Anna's left-wing instructors.

There is conflicting information about this period. Members of the snack bar crowd don't remember the Obama-Dunham relationship. In this report, Hal Abercrombie said he never saw them together. Pake Zane could not recall Ann from those days but had precise memories of Senior.

However, Neil Abercrombie, the Democratic congressman from Hawaii, was part of those regular gatherings and described Anna as "the original feminist." Abercrombie says he remembered her appearing at some of the weekend gatherings. Obama was such a strong personality, he said, that he could see how the young woman was awed and overwhelmed by him.

"She was a girl, and what I mean by that is she was only 17 and 18, just out of high school. And he brought her at different times. She mostly observed because she was a kid. Everybody there was pretty high-powered grad-student types."

Very comprehensive history of Stanley Ann Dunham and her son Barack -- Part 1 and Part 2.

Marriage?

The legend is that on February 2, 1961, against Madelyn's hopes, and against the desires of Obama's father back in Kenya, Anna, three months pregnant, and Senior hopped a plane to Maui and got married.

The wedding had no no minister, rabbi, or imam. There were no bridesmaids, ushers, witnesses, guests -- not even her parents. And no record of the happy event has yet been found.

Anna Goes Missing

For the next five months -- February through August -- Anna drops out of sight. She doesn't register for the winter and spring semesters at U. of Hawaii. The next thing we know is that Anna ends up in . . .

Then, Little Barry

Seattle?

What was Ann Dunham, at age 18, doing at Mercer Island (outside of Seattle) with a newborn infant for a "brief" visit?

What were the logistics of a Honolulu-Seattle round trip in 1961: how long was the flight, and how much would the trip have cost? Or, was Anna returning from Kenya, as some have alleged. No one knows if Anna had arrived in Seattle from Honolulu or Mombasa.

Were there any restrictions in 1961 about flying with newborn babies? Did Dunham travel alone with "Barry" (the name Blake used) or was she accompanied by Barack Sr., her mother, or others? This is an important fact. The child's name was "Barry" not "Barack."

It is possible that Dunham actually delivered Barry someplace close to Mercer Island -- like Vancouver.

Faceless In Seattle

Anna and the infant Barby were in Washington state by August 1961 when she registered for classes at University of Washington using the Capitol Hill apartment address as her address. Anna Dunham started classes at the University of Washington 15 days after Barack's birth. Obama was born on 4 Aug 1961, and Ann Dunham started night classes for the Fall semester on 19 Aug 1961. She was still living at that address in fall of 1962 when Barbara Cannon Rusk visited her.

Shortly after Barack was born, Dunham and her new son moved to Seattle. They lived in Apartment 2 of the Villa Ria Apartments at 516 13th Avenue E on Capitol Hill, and she enrolled at the University of Washington. Anna and baby Barack returned to Hawaii in December 1962 or January 1963. This is Mary Toutonghi's account from Anna's time on Seattle's Capitol Hill.

FROM a DIFFERENT STORY (if same location): They lived in a three-story house that had been converted into three inexpensive apartments. Toutonghi and her family lived in the basement apartment, and Ann Dunham -- Obama's mother -- lived in the apartment directly upstairs.

FROM a 3RD story: Sum 1962 -- Sighting by John W. Hunt in June-Sept 1962 "I had moved to Utah for a while after high school, and I came back to Seattle in the summer of 1962. I remember visiting the World's Fair, and then stopping by Stanley Ann's apartment on Capitol Hill. It was a small apartment, upstairs. It was after June, and could have been as late as September, 1962. I visited her for half a day or so. It was a...

In August, 1961, she enrolled in a University of Washington extension course. Between August, 1961 and March 1962, she enrolled in a total of four extension courses at the University of Washington (records), earning a total of 20 credits for her work in those courses, no small feat, considering that graduation required 180 credits, and the typical full time student earned 45 credits a year.

It was a curious academic choice. Why would she enroll in extension courses at the University of Washington when she had found herself intellectually stimulated during her previous year of studies at the University of Hawaii?

It appears from the following item, that Anna returned to Hawaii between the Univ. of Washington's Winter semester and the Univ. of Hawaii's Winter semester. I'll try to get an exact date, but for now, that would be around December 1962 or January 1963.

So it's fair to conclude that Anna was living in Washington during the period from August 1961 through January 1963.

Mary Toutonghi's Account

Mary Toutonghi, a speech pathologist currently operating a private clinic in Soldotna, was living in Seattle during the early 1960s with an 18-month daughter and a husband attending Seattle University. Barack Obama's mother was her neighbor. Toutonghi needed extra pin money, and Stanley Ann Durham needed a babysitter. Thus began the commercial relationship.

She watched Obama a few times a week, for about three hours at a time. Toutonghi doesn't remember how much Dunham paid her, but she does remember what Barack Obama was like at the time. It tells more about Ann Dunham (mom) and baby Obama in Seattle. It also lends additional credence to being born in Canada, versus Ann Dunham (mom) hopping back and forth in the early 60's between Seattle and Hawaii on the airlines with a baby Obama (There should be aircraft manifest archives in a library or depository if true ...):Tuesday, January 20, 2009

They lived in a three-story house that had been converted into three inexpensive apartments. Toutonghi and her family lived in the basement apartment, and Ann Dunham -- Obama’s mother -- lived in the apartment directly upstairs.

Dunham attended night classes a few days a week at the University of Washington, and needed someone to take care of her son. "The time was available and we were all struggling students. She needed a baby sitter and I said 'Sure,'" Toutonghi said. She watched Obama a few times a week, for about three hours at a time. Dunham paid her, but she doesn’t remember how much, Toutonghi said.

"I remember his being very large and very curious and very alert. I don’t remember him fussing, but that doesn’t mean anything. Saying he never fussed is like saying he’s not real. But I don’t remember any undue fussing at all," she said.

Being a struggling young mother herself, in the tumultuous dawning of the 1960s, no less, Toutonghi said she doesn’t remember many specifics about Dunham. "I was so engrossed in myself at the time," she said.

But the circumstances of a young mother living, attending school and raising a baby alone stuck in Toutonghi’s mind. "It was a tough situation, as far as I knew," she said. "She was 19, she’d promised her parents that she was going to finish college, even through she’d married. I’m presuming her parents were paying for the schooling -- nobody had any money at the time."

Dunham met Barack Obama Sr., a foreign student from Nyang’oma Kogelo in Kenya, Africa, when she was a freshman at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. They married on Feb. 2, 1961, and Barack Obama II was born Aug. 4, 1961, when Dunham was 18.

Dunham left school to take care of the baby, and returned to Seattle while Obama Sr. finished college in Hawaii and left for graduate school at Harvard University.

"It was interesting, and I don’t know why she was going to school in Seattle and he was in Hawaii at the time. She had told me at one point that because of her husband’s post in the tribe he was going to have to go back to Kenya and marry a black woman, as well. It was a whole different world, so she was accepting of that and hoping she could get back to him soon," Toutonghi said.

Later, Dunham moved back to Hawaii with her son and filed for divorce from Obama Sr. in 1964.

By that time, Toutonghi had long since moved on to the next chapter in her life. She baby-sat for Dunham for two months, then she and her husband bought a house in the Government Hill section of Seattle and moved there, before moving to Alaska in 1977. She had a long career as a speech pathologist. She’s retired from the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District and has a private clinic in Soldotna.

She didn’t have cause to think about her former charge until 2004, when she came across his first book, "Dreams from My Father." Then she saw he was the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention in 2004.

"Since I found the book, 'Dreams from My Father,' when it was first published, then when I was working on the 2004 presidential campaign and realized he was the convention speaker, it blew me away. And then this," she said. "I keep thinking of the six degrees of separation, that thing. I’ve known some unusual people in my time, but this was different."

Toutonghi said she often wondered what happened to Dunham, who became Ann Dunham Soetoro after a later marriage, and died of ovarian cancer in 1995. "We talked, but I can’t say, if I had been really strong friends I would have kept up the relationship. It was interesting to me as I read that book, his first book, I was thinking of his mother, then finding out she had died I felt very badly. I had meant to try to contact her through the publisher, but I didn’t get around to it. It was one of those things," she said.

Anna Returns To Hawaii

Here's some information from Atlas Shrugs about Anna and the mid-1960's.

It appears that Anna settles down a little after returning to Hawaii and the university. When Obama was almost 2, Ann returned to college at the University of Hawaii for the spring semester. Money was tight. She collected food stamps and relied on her parents to help take care of young Barack. She would get her bachelor's degree four years later.

I believe the apartment, located at 110 1427 Alexander St., was rented for Anna and Barack Jr. by her parents upon her return from WA state. She remained there until just before she registered for spring classes at UH at Manoa in 1963.

She filed for divorce from Senior, and would ultimately receive receives a degree in mathematics.

According to this blog, Atlas reader Rudy emailed both the University of Washington and the University of Hawaii, and they sent him back dates of enrollment. It didn't match the dates Wikipedia had for Stanley Ann Dunham. Bob tried to update Wikipedia and his updates got deleted within minutes.

Here's the document that was returned by email from the University of Hawaii:

"The University of Hawaii at Manoa is only able to provide the following information for Stanley Ann Dunham:

Dates of attendance:
Fall 1960 (First day of instruction 9/26/1960)
Spring 1963 -- Summer 1966
Fall 1972 -- Fall 1974
Summer 1976
Spring 1978
Fall 1984 -- Summer 1992

Degrees awarded:
BA - Mathematics, Summer 1967 (August 6, 1967)
MA - Anthropology, Fall 1983 (December 18, 1983)
PhD - Anthropology, Summer 1992 (August 9, 1992)

Here's the email that was returned from the University of Washington:

Ms. Stanley Ann Dunham was enrolled at the University of Washington for:
Autumn 1961
Winter 1962
Spring 1962

Assuming these email responses were true, the University of Hawaii has Anna starting class in Sept 26, 1960 and dropping out for the spring semester (while pregnant). She then re-enrolled at the University of Washington in the autumn of 1961, just after Obama was born. Obama Sr. was still at the University of Hawaii, and graduated in 1962 while Anna was at University of Washington.

Here's some more stuff.

Anna In Southeast Asia

Anna, is often described as an anthropologist, but she traveled around Southeast Asia, pursuing a career in international banking and rural development that took her to Ghana, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Nepal and Bangladesh.

Anna went to work for the Ford Foundation from 1981 through 1984. She was employed as a program officer for "Women and Employment" at the "Regional Southeast Asia Office of the Ford Foundation in Jakarta.

She lived in Pakistan for the five years beginning in 1987 and ending in 1992. During this time, Obama visited his mother and stayed for a few months. Anna was hired as a consultant by the Asian Development Bank for Pakistan Agricultural Development Bank’s Gujranwalla Agricultural Development Program.

In 1986, Anna worked on a developmental project in Pakistan. Later that year, Anna and her daughter traveled the Silk Road in China. Anna monitored the funds received for this program from the Asian Development Bank and trained the Mobile Credit Officers of the Agricultural Bank. This program was controlled from the Gujranwalla Regional Office. She stayed for five years in the Hilton International Hotel (now Avari Hotel), Lahore. She travelled daily from Lahore to Gujranwalla. When Barack Obama visited Pakistan, he stayed in the same hotel. After returning from Pakistan, she died from cancer within three years.

Anna also worked for the Ford Foundation and Women’s World Bank, establishing micro-credit loans in developing countries. Her antipathy for America and Americans didn't prevent her from funneling its money to third-world countries.

She worked at Bank Rakyat of Indonesia, where she facilitated the practice "macrofinancing," making loans to people with poor credit and low incomes. You know the one, exactly what the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac banks were pushing -- loans to people with poor credit and low incomes that created the mortgage meltdown.

Bank Rakyat is 70% government owned (Persero) and has been government owned for the entire period since the war of independence in 19XX It is also part of the "Islamic banking cooperative."

Sometimes, Anna forgot to pay the tax man.

So, Obama went to Pakistan twice. The first time in 1981 while he was at Occidental and the second trip referenced above.

Anna's Dissertation

Anna published her dissertation in 1992. Her dissertation, 'Peasant blacksmithing in Indonesia: Surviving and Thriving Against All Odds,' was 1,067 pages long. In the index section, she signed her work as "Ann Dunham Sutoro."

In 1992, she earned a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Hawaii.

In May 2009, news reports said that that a dissertation written by Obama's late mother was being republished.

Duke University Press said Monday that an edited version of Ann Dunham's anthropological study about rural craftsmen in Indonesia is scheduled to reach stores this fall. Dunham completed the study three years before she died in 1995.

Duke marketing manager Emily Young said the foreword was written by Obama's half-sister and Dunham's daughter, Maya Soetoro-Ng.

The book is based on Ann Dunham's 14 years of research among village workers on the Indonesian island of Java.

Young said the project came to the university's press arm because it has a reputation for publishing anthropological studies.

The operative words in this press release are "edited version" -- all the anti-American, communist stuff will be redacted.

The Name Game

Stanley Ann's known names and aliases:

• Stanley Ann Dunham (maiden)
• Anna Dunham (her friends called her Anna)
• Anna Obama (after getting hitched to Senior (in Washington phonebooks))
• Stanley Ann D. Obama (1964 Divorce)
• Ann Soetoro (in several quotes in that timeframe)
• Stanley Ann Soetoro (1980 Divorce)

• Stanley Ann Dunham Sutoro (1991 tax lien image & 1991 tax lien records)
• Ann Dunham Sutoro (Dissertation)
• S. Ann Dunham (Dissertation)

• and a few others I’m sure I’m forgetting

Obama has just about as many aliases and nicknames, with variants of Barack Obama, Barry Soetoro, Barry Obama, etc.

Anna Dies

In 1995, Anna returned to Hawaii, where she died of ovarian cancer.

Ann Dunham's book, "Surviving Against the Odds," was published after her death. The book, written by Obama’s mother, was set to be published in November, 2008, by Duke University Press, the school announced Monday. "Surviving against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia," Dr. Stanley Ann Dunham’s 1992 anthropology dissertation for the University of Hawaii, is the product of 14 years of research on the metalworking industry in a Javanese village.

Dunham died in 1995. Her book, edited by Alice G. Dewey, Dunham’s graduate adviser, and Nancy I. Cooper, a fellow graduate student, will be available in November.

Dunham’s daughter and Obama’s half sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, who wrote the book’s foreword, said in a statement she was "delighted that our mother’s book is being published, and I am grateful to Duke University for making this dream of hers come true. My hope is that this book will be read by those who come to love the particularities of its world and who also see the myriad potential application of its ideas and methods to other worlds."