'Toot': Obama grandmother a force that shaped him

[babylonsister]

'Toot': Obama grandmother a force that shaped him
Sat Aug 23, 2008 12:56 PM EDT
Allen G. Breed, AP National Writer


Sen. Barack Obama is a poker man, but his grandmother's game of choice is bridge. Duplicate bridge, to be exact.

In poker, a good player can still bluff his way through a lousy hand. In duplicate bridge, different sets of players are made to play the same hands multiple times — accentuating the players' skill while reducing the element of luck.

Madelyn Payne Dunham never taught her "Barry" how to play bridge, yet she gave him the tools to make the most of the cards life dealt him.

This is the woman who raised Obama in the absence of his parents. The daughter of a Midwest oil company clerk who "taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland" — things like "accountability and self-reliance. Love of country. Working hard without making excuses. Treating your neighbor as you'd like to be treated."

She's also the "white grandmother" cited in Obama's speech on race. The woman who, though she loved him "as much as she loves anything in this world," once confessed "her fear of black men who passed by her on the street" and who was capable of uttering "racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."

Frail and zealously shielded from a prying media, the 85-year-old woman Obama affectionately calls "Toot" won't be in Denver when he takes the stage at the Democratic National Convention. But as the Illinois senator becomes the first black man to accept a major party's presidential nomination, friends and family will be looking for glimpses of the white woman who had as much to do with shaping his character as anyone.

more...

http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2008/08/23/1777362-toot-obama-grandmother-a-force-that-shaped-him

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Great article. Thanks for posting.

[babylonsister]

3. I was looking for a picture of her and came across this gem: so,

here's her picture, too.

[BrklynLiberal]

7. She is quite a woman!!!!

[BeyondGeography]

2. So thoughtful of you to post this...what a great article

More:

Aside from a four-year interlude during which he lived in Indonesia with his mother and stepfather, Obama spent his childhood in Honolulu — most of it in his grandparents' two-bedroom, high-rise apartment at 1617 S. Beretania St.

He writes fondly of looking up from the basketball court to find Toot watching him practice from the 10th-floor window. He has vivid memories of his grandmother heading to the office.

"Every morning, she woke up at five a.m. and changed from the frowsy muu-muus (sic) she wore around the apartment into a tailored suit and high-heeled pumps," he writes.

Obama says Toot took a secretarial job at Bank of Hawaii "to help defray the costs of my unexpected birth."

...She took him on his first tour of the contiguous United States, traveling by Greyhound bus and stopping at Howard Johnson's along the way. She showed him the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Disneyland and, finally, Chicago — the city where he would hone his skills as a community organizer, meet his future wife and launch his political career.

His sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, says many of the qualities that got Obama this far came from Toot.

"From our grandmother, he gets his pragmatism, his levelheadedness, his ability to stay centered in the eye of the storm," she told The Associated Press. "His sensible, no-nonsense (side) is inherited from her."

...About a year ago, brother Jack says, she had a corneal transplant. He says it was mainly so she could watch television, "to see what's going on with Barack."

[roguevalley]

8. corneal transplants are a bitch to recover from. my mama had one.

I am glad they shield her. She earned it, the sweet woman. She raised a very fine young man.

[C_U_L8R]

4. "Grandmom, I'm going to be President"

grandmom did good.

our prayers and best wishes are with her

[liberalpragmatist]

5. How sad...

... I pray she'll see the boy she raised get elected.

Still, she has lived a long and wonderful life. And she raised a hell of a grandson. (Her granddaughter -- Obama's sister Maya -- is pretty awesome too.)

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. Very nice. Thanks

[democracy1st]

9. K & R

[orleans]

10. thank you Madelyn Payne Dunham -- you raised a great kid. n/t