If Michelle Obama is her husband's “;rock,”; his grandmother is a big part of the ground beneath it.

Update On Obama's Grandmother

 

Madelyn Dunham is suffering from a broken hip and has had a recurrence of a cancer that has spread.

 

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  Honolulu resident Madelyn Dunham gave young Barack Obama a place to call home while his mother traveled the world. When he needed money at Punahou School, she went without new clothes to help pay his tuition.

And when the Illinois senator decided to seek the Democratic presidential nomination, Dunham provided the “;Kansas heartland”; pedigree he needed to appeal to conservative white voters - and a personal anecdote about racial prejudice that helped the man with the foreign name and Ivy League resume connect with the African-American experience.

The 85-year-old former bank executive is said to be “;gravely ill”; after falling and breaking her hip, and some reports suggest she might not live to see the results of the Nov. 4 election. Some news reports yesterday said the former smoker is also suffering from metastasized cancer.

Whatever happens, she's already lived long enough to see her “;Barry”; achieve what she'd wanted for him, her brother says.

“;I think she thinks she was important in raising a fine young man,”; Charles Payne, 83, said in a brief telephone interview yesterday from his Chicago home. “;I doubt if it would occur to her that he would go this far this fast. But she's enjoyed watching it.”;

Madelyn Dunham's younger sister, Margaret Payne, a retired professor who lives in North Carolina, said yesterday that she is unable to travel to Hawaii but has been in touch with her sister by phone.

Obama's sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng of Honolulu, has been caring for “;Toot,”; a nickname derived from the local term tutu. She declined to comment when reached by phone yesterday.

Soetoro-Ng had already taken leave from her job as a teacher at La Pietra-Hawaii School for Girls to campaign for her brother, and is not expected back in the classroom until after the election.

Obama and others credit Dunham - whose birthday is Sunday - with instilling in him an appreciation for education and hard work, and with setting an example of thrift, practicality and tolerance.

“;I think there's nobody more important than her, except his mother, in shaping his character,”; said David Mendell, who interviewed Dunham in 2004 for the Chicago Tribune and later wrote the book, “;Obama: From Promise to Power.”;

Obama has long regretted not being there when his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, succumbed to ovarian cancer at age 52, on Nov. 7, 1995.

“;The biggest mistake I made was not being at my mother's bedside when she died,”; he told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2004. “;She was in Hawaii in a hospital, and we didn't know how fast it was going to take, and I didn't get there in time.”;

Alice Dewey, a family friend in Honolulu, said Dunham's death came unexpectedly. Dunham had rallied after chemotherapy to treat her cancer, and continued working at her computer in an apartment next to her mother's.

“;She kept on working,”; Dewey told the Star-Bulletin earlier this year. “;Then it reoccurred and was much worse. She went quickly.”;

U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono issued a statement yesterday offering her best wishes to Madelyn Dunham, whom she knew from a job at the Bank of Hawaii.

“;After I finished college, I was assigned to work for Mrs. Dunham,”; Hirono said. “;Even at that time, I recognized she was an extraordinary woman who had risen from the ranks to become one of the first female vice presidents in the company. “;