Nov 3, 2008 3:40 pm US/Central
Obama's Grandmother Dies On Eve Of Election
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) ―
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Barack Obama's maternal grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham, had an instrumental role in rearing the Illinois senator.
On the eve of the biggest day of his political life, Barack Obama says his grandmother died Monday.
Obama flew to Hawaii last week to visit Madelyn Dunham, 85, who helped raise Obama. The Illinois senator said he left the campaign trail with less than two weeks remaining before the election because his grandmother is ill but alert. Her brother has said she recently fell and broke a hip.
The Democratic presidential candidate announced the news in a joint statement with his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng. He said his grandmother had died peacefully after a battle with cancer.
He said: "She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility. She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances."
The candidate learned of her death Monday morning while he was campaigning in Jacksonville, Fla. He planned to go ahead with campaign appearances.
Obama told ABC's "Good Morning America" in an interview broadcast recently: "Without going through the details too much, she's gravely ill. We weren't sure and I'm still not sure whether she makes it to Election Day."
"We're all praying and we hope she does, but one of the things I want to make sure of is I had a chance to sit down with her and to talk to her. She's still alert and she's still got all her faculties. And I want to make sure that I don't miss that opportunity."
Obama has said he missed a chance to visit his mother just before she died of ovarian cancer - she was 53 when she died in 1995 - and didn't want to repeat that mistake. Dunham was staying at her Honolulu apartment.
While campaigning for the U.S. Senate and for president, Obama often told warm, loving stories about his grandmother. His Philadelphia speech about race relations, in the wake of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright fallout, was different. He said she was, on occasion, frightened to see black men approaching on the street.
Dunham's brother, Chicagoan Charles Payne, said recently that Dunham's reaction to her role in her grandson's race speech was "no more than just sort of raised eyebrows."
Obama was born in Hawaii. His Kansas-born mother and Kenyan father met as college students there, but Dunham and her husband, Stanley, raised Obama for extended periods when his mother lived overseas.
In his memoir "Dreams from My Father," Obama described his grandfather as something of a dreamer. It was his grandmother who was practical enough to support the family by working her way up in the ranks at a local bank.
Obama has often mentioned "Toot" - his version of the Hawaiian word "tutu," or grandparent - as an example of a strong woman succeeding through intelligence and determination. Many of his speeches describe her working on a bomber assembly line during World War II.
"She's really been one of the cornerstones of my life. She's a remarkable woman," he said.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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