Obama's Grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, Slideshow, Photos, Video

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UPDATE 11/3 4:39PM: Barack Obama's grandmother has died at age 86.

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Barack Obama is heading to Hawaii on Thursday to visit with his very ill grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, for two days.

According to The Chicago Tribune "Madelyn Dunham, 85, was released from a hospital late last week and returned to her home in Honolulu with a health condition the aide described as "very serious."

For more on Obama's grandmother, check out our slideshow and read more information below:

• • • • • • • Obama with his grandparents Madelyn and Stanley Dunham (aka Toot and Gramps) at his high school graduation in 1979.

The BBC has more on the "central figure" in Obama's young life.

She and her late husband Stanley raised the young Barack in Hawaii for many years while his mother, who had remarried, lived abroad.

Known within the family as "Toot", a shortened form of the Hawaiian word "tutu" meaning grandmother, she gave him a stable home and the traditional American values brought from her own Midwestern childhood.

"Toot" was also in an ad for her grandson in April. Watch it here:

Comments

[write2bheard]

What a testimony to the power of strong, loving grandparents and the power of a family who sticks together even when loving someone is hard, inconvenient, and might even bring a measure of incrimination into your life. There are some valuable parenting lessons to be learned from this family.

[lagumbo]

II send my love and prayers to toot, and the OBAMA family. I would also like to thank toot for doing such a wonderful job with BARACK. He is a brilliant, and compaaaionate man. Our country needs BARACK OBAMA.

[bayside]

Bless her heart and I thank her for helping to shape Obama into a fine young man he is today..She must be very proud of him ,as we are..

[JayeSF]

We all send our prayers to Toot.

And the fact that, for some reason, a bunch of right-wing maniacs decided to flood THIS particular article's comment section with their smears....

is yet another example of how little morality republican supporters have....

what are y'all gonna do on 11/5 and afterwards ? how in the world will you ever get on....?

[surething]

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=9z7-r-9k0EU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb-gi-DnGJM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmmD00G_ZcQ

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=WAYn9lDknZg

a few videos of Maya Soetoro-Ng, Baracks's sister

[jackson1015]

The only thing I love more than Barack and his beautiful family is his supporters, the people in this country who have taken him to their heart and are going to help him make history on 11/4. He is a brilliant man but he could never have gotten this far without millions of Americans in his corner. It is amazing that we are all on this journey together.

[gypsysoul111]

barack looks just like his grandfather!

[americanchic]

i know!! they look so alike! and you can definitely see barack in is mother's (as a child) picture

[cxfornier]

They say the eyes are the mirror of the soul. Look at Barack's eyes (and that smile); they are definitely Mrs. Dunham's eyes. The facial features are his grandfather's. no doubt about it. I wish Mrs. Dunham all the best but whatever happens, come November 4th, you will see her looking/smiling through the new president-elect.

[thegirlnextdoor]

I loved my grandma so much! I am glad he is going home to be with his grandma!

[Caeleste]

Obama's taking time from campaigning, at a critical moment in this country's existence, only serves to increase my respect for him as a person AND as a candidate. We finally have the opportunity to elect a President who is intellectually rigorous, learned, caring, and has strong moral fiber. If you want to know how a candidate is going to treat you, look at how the candidate treats others in his/her life. Obama's love and respect for his grandmother is 180-degrees from McCain’s dumping his first wife, Carol, for the much younger, and independently wealthy, Cindy.
When times become stressful, a person's true character comes out: Obama proves a person can be successful and humane; McCain believes that achieving success requires ruthless disregard for others, and employing malicious fiction in lieu of truth. The ever-increasing volume and divisiveness in the “us-versus-them" campaign rhetoric clearly signifies the ever-increasing distress and havoc in the McCain/Palin campaign. .McCain mirrors Bush in policy 90% of the time, and the McCain/Palin campaign mirrors the worst of Bush/Rove/Atwater campaign tactics. A McCain/Palin administration means four more years of ignorance and hatred that will spell the demise of our tripartite Federal Government and the erosion to elimination of individual Constitutional rights, civil rights, and human rights in the United States. No doubt about it: McCain and Palin are the evil twins of Bush and Cheney.

[Clavis]

That's one handsome family!

[bail me out]

the best thing that she can take with her to her grave is to see her grand son become prez, Once up there in heaven, she can tell Obama's mother, father and grand father what has become of Little Houssein.

God bless your family Barak..

[bail me out]

His sister is hot.

[americanchic]

...he doesn't have a sister

[Trill]

americanchic...You gotta keep up if you want to be a responsible blogger. Yes, Senator Obama has a sister whose last name is something like Ng. She is taking care of his grandmother in Hawaii now. So get with it, or shut the f*** up.

[faithfully]

yes he does

[Changeissogood]

Obama looks a LOT like his grandfather!

[zeotrope]

You noticed that too huh?

[10cats4me]

Ditto. Looks just like him.

[lainey]

My prayers and thoughts are with the Obama family and his grandmother at this time. In advance, I thank God that she will see her grandson- a good, intelligent and decent man-sworn in on 1-20-09. Thanks for raising a wonderful family.