Stanley Armour Dunham

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Stanley Armour Dunham (March 23, 1918 – February 8, 1992) was an American furniture salesman and the maternal grandfather of President Barack Obama. He and his wife Madelyn Payne Dunham raised Obama from age 10 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Early life
Stanley was born in Wichita, Kansas, the younger son of Ralph Waldo Emerson Dunham, Sr. and Ruth Lucille Armour. When Stanley was eight, his mother died by suicide, and he and his older brother were raised by their maternal grandparents in El Dorado, Kansas. As a teenager, he was found to be rebellious. He married Madelyn Lee Payne on May 5, 1940. Their daughter, Ann Dunham (later known as Ann), was born in Wichita in 1942.

World War II
Stanley joined the U.S. Army in 1942 and served in Europe during World War II with the 1830th Ordnance Supply and Maintenance Company, Aviation, in the Third Army. He was discharged in 1945. During the war, his wife worked on a Boeing B-29 assembly line.

Later life
After the war, the Dunhams lived in several places as they built their life together: Berkeley, California; El Dorado, Kansas; Seattle, Washington; and finally Honolulu, Hawaii. Stanley worked as a furniture salesman in multiple stores, while Madelyn later worked at the Bank of Hawaii and became one of the bank’s first female vice presidents in 1970.

Barack Obama and memory
Barack Obama has written about his memories with his grandfather, including moments like sitting on his shoulders as Apollo astronauts arrived at Hickam Air Force Base.

Death and burial
Stanley Armour Dunham died in Honolulu on February 8, 1992, at age 73. He is buried at Punchbowl National Cemetery in Hawaii.