Stanley Armour Dunham (1918 - 1992)

Born 23 Mar 1918 in Wichita, Sedgwick, Kansas, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Madelyn Lee (Payne) Dunham — married 5 May 1940 in El Dorado, Kansas

Descendants

Died 8 Feb 1992 at age 73 in Honolulu, Oahu, Honolulu, Hawaii, United States

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Stanley Dunham is a Military Veteran.
Served in the United States Army 18 Jan 1942-
Pvt, World War II

When Stanley Armour was born on March 23, 1918, in Wichita, Kansas, his father, Ralph, was 23 and his mother, Ruth, was 17. He lost his mother when he was only 8 years old. He and his wife, Madelyn Payne Dunham, raised their grandson Barack Obama from the age of 10 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

His father's ancestors settled in Kempton, Indiana, in the 1840s, before relocating to Kansas. His parents were married on October 3, 1915, at a home on South Saint Francis St. in Wichita, and opened The Travelers' Cafe on William Street situated between the old firehouse and the old Wichita City Hotel.

On November 25, 1926, at age 8, Dunham discovered his mother's body after she had committed suicide. Subsequently, Dunham's father placed him and his older brother Ralph Waldo Emerson Dunham, Jr. in the care of their maternal grandparents in El Dorado, Kansas. A rebellious teenager, Dunham allegedly punched his high school principal and spent some time drifting, hopping rail cars to Chicago, California, and back again. He married Madelyn Lee Payne on May 5, 1940, the night of her senior prom.

Dunham enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army on January 18, 1942, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and served in the European Theatre of World War II with the 1830th Ordnance Supply and Maintenance Company, Aviation. During D-Day, this unit helped to support the 9th Air Force. Dunham and his brother were deployed to France six weeks after D-Day. Madelyn Dunham gave birth to their daughter Stanley Ann Dunham, who was later known as Ann, at St. Francis Hospital in Wichita on November 29, 1942. During the war, Madelyn Dunham worked on a Boeing B-29 assembly line in Wichita.

Dunham was discharged from the U.S. Army on August 30, 1945. After the war, the family moved to Berkeley, California so he could pursue study at the University of California, Berkeley and then eventually back to El Dorado, Kansas, where Dunham managed a furniture store. In 1955, after the Dunhams moved to Seattle, Washington, Dunham worked as a salesman for the Standard-Grunbaum Furniture Company, and his daughter Ann attended middle school. The family lived in an apartment in the Wedgwood Estates in the Wedgwood, Seattle neighborhood. In 1956 they moved to the Shorewood Apartments on Mercer Island, a Seattle suburb. Ann attended high school there, and they stayed until she graduated in 1960. In 1957, Dunham started working for the Doces Majestic Furniture Company.

The family then moved to Honolulu, Hawaii, where Dunham found a better furniture store opportunity. Madelyn Dunham started working at the Bank of Hawaii in 1960, and was promoted as one of the bank's first female vice presidents in 1970.

In Barack Obama's memoir, Dreams From My Father, he wrote, "One of my earliest memories is of sitting on my grandfather's shoulders as the astronauts from one of the Apollo missions arrived at Hickam Air Force Base after a successful splashdown". At 10 years old, Barack Obama moved in with the Dunhams in Honolulu to attend school in the U.S. while his mother and stepfather Lolo Soetoro were living in Jakarta, Indonesia. His mother later came back to Hawaii to pursue graduate studies, but when she returned to Indonesia in 1977 for her master's fieldwork, Obama stayed in the United States with his grandparents. Obama wrote in his memoir, Dreams From My Father, "I'd arrived at an unspoken pact with my grandparents: I could live with them and they'd leave me alone so long as I kept my trouble out of sight".

Dunham died on February 8, 1992, in Honolulu, Hawaii, at the age of 73, and was buried in the Punchbowl National Cemetery.

Dunham is a direct descendant of Jonathan Singletary Dunham, a prominent early American settler who left the Plymouth Colony to build the first gristmill in New Jersey. The most recent native European ancestor was Falmouth Kearney, a farmer who emigrated from Moneygall, County Offaly, Ireland, during the Great Irish Famine and settled in Jefferson Township, Tipton County, Indiana, United States. Kearney's youngest daughter, Mary Ann (Kearney) Dunham, was Stanley Dunham's paternal grandmother.

Stanley Dunham's distant cousins include six U.S. presidents: James Madison, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, plus Barack Obama, his grandson. Through a common ancestor, Mareen Duvall, a wealthy Huguenot merchant who emigrated to Maryland in the 1650s, Dunham is related to former Vice-President Dick Cheney (an eighth cousin once removed). Through another common ancestor, Hans Gutknecht, a German Swiss from Bischwiller, Alsace whose three sons resettled in Germantown, Pennsylvania as well as the Kentucky frontier in the mid-18th century, Dunham is President Harry S. Truman's fourth cousin, twice removed. Dunham and Wild Bill Hickok are sixth cousins, four times removed, through Jacob Dunham.

• Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Armour_Dunham

Military

United States World War II Army Enlistment Records

Name Stanley A Dunham

Name (Original) DUNHAM STANLEY A

Event Type Military Service

Event Date 18 Jan 1942

Term of Enlistment Enlistment for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law

Event Place Ft Leavenworth, Kansas, United States

Race White

Citizenship Status citizen

Birth Year 1918

Birthplace KANSAS

Education Level 4 years of high school

Civilian Occupation Salespersons

Marital Status Married

Military Rank Private

Army Branch Branch Immaterial - Warrant Officers, USA

Source Reference Civil Life

Serial Number -------Affiliate ARC Identifier 1263923---Box Film Number 02452.102

Citing this Record

Biography

Born to Ralph Waldo Emerson and Ruth Lucille Armour in Wichita, Kansas, son Stanley Armour on 23 March 1918.^[1]

1920 Wichita Ward 5, Sedgwick, Kansas

Age 1

Marital Status Single

Race (Original) White

Birth Year (Estimated) 1919

Birthplace Kansas

Father's Birthplace Kansas---Mother's Birthplace Illinois

Sheet Letter B--Sheet Number 10

Harry Armour Head M 46 Illinois

Gabriella Armour Wife F 43 Missouri

Doris Armour Daughter F 13 Illinois

Ralph Dunham Son-in-law M 26 Kansas Mechanic-Automobile

Ruth Dunham Daughter F 19 Illinois

Ralph Dunham Grandson M 3 Kansas

Stanly Dunham Grandson M 1 Kansas

Christopher C Clark Father M 74 Missouri

Citing this Record

1930 El Dorado, Butler, Kansas

Age 53---Marital Status Married

Birth Year (Estimated) 1877

Birthplace Missouri

Father's Birthplace Missouri---Mother's Birthplace Kentucky

Sheet Letter A---Sheet Number 17

Harry E Armour Head M 56 Illinois Pumper-Oil Lease

Gabriella Armour Wife F 53 Missouri

Doris E Armour Daughter F 24 Illinois Stenographer Oil Co. Office

Ralph E Dunham Grandson M 13 Kansas Carrier paper route

Stanley R Dunham Grandson M 12 Kansas

Christopher C Clark Father-in-law M 84 Missouri

Citing this Record

"United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X73V-383 : accessed 8 January 2018), Gabriella Armour in household of Harry E Armour, El Dorado, Butler, Kansas, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 19, sheet 17A, line 33, family 180, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 695; FHL microfilm 2,340,430.

Death

Hawaii Obituaries Index, ca. 1980-present

Name Stanley Armour Dunham

Event Date 1992

Event Place Hawaii, United States

Age 73

Birth Year (Estimated) 1919

Birthplace Wichita, Kansas

Death Date 08 Feb 1992

Newspaper Honolulu Advertiser

Spouse: Madelyn L Dunham Wife

Children

1. S Ann D Soctoro Daughter

Parents and

Siblings:

1. Ralph E Brother
2. Virginia Goeldner Sister
3. Elinore Berkebile Sister
4. Citing this Record

Sources

1. "United States Census, 1920," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MFX9-MQW : accessed 8 January 2018), Stanly Dunham in household of Harry Armour, Wichita Ward 5, Sedgwick, Kansas, United States; citing ED 150, sheet 10B, line 89, family 281, NARA microfilm publication T625 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1992), roll 550; FHL microfilm 1,820,550.
2. "United States World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K85N-NDC : 5 December 2014), Stanley A Dunham, enlisted 18 Jan 1942, Ft Leavenworth, Kansas, United States; citing "Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, ca. 1938-1946," database, The National Archives: Access to Archival Databases (AAD) (http://aad.archives.gov : National Archives and Records Administration, 2002); NARA NAID 126323, National Archives at College Park, Maryland.
3. "Hawaii Obituaries Index, ca. 1980-present," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QL7Q-MKQM : 23 June 2017), Stanley Armour Dunham, 1992; citing Hawaii, United States, The Honolulu Advertiser, The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, The Kauai Garden Island News, The Maui News and The Hawaii Tribune-Herald. Joseph F. Smith Library at Brigham Young University - Hawaii, Laie; FHL microfilm 100,544,966.

1. ↑ "Birth Announced," The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kansas), Thursday 28 March 1918, page 6, column 1.

• Title: New England Historic and Genealogical Society

Abbreviation: NEHGS

• Stanley Armour Dunham on Find A Grave: Memorial #25406984 retrieved Sälgö-1 03:30, 4 October 2016 (EDT)
• This WikiTree profile is referenced from Wikidata: Item Q2856335, en:Wikipedia