The article is dedicated to American female anthropologist Anne Dunham. We will tell about her life, scientific activity, marriage and religious beliefs. Ann Dunham is the mother of US President Barack Obama.
Biography
Stanley Ann Dunham (some sources indicate the name Dunham) was born November 29, 1942 in the largest city of Kansas Wichita. The girl’s childhood passed not only in Kansas, but also in Texas, California and Oklahoma. As a teenager, she lived in Mercer Island, which is located next to Seattle. Anne spent most of her life in Indonesia and Hawaii.
Mother Madeline Dunham worked at the Boeing aircraft plant in Wichita, her father was a military man and served in the US Army.
Marriage Ann
She met her first husband Barack Obama Sr. in the Russian language classes at the University of Hawaii. They got married on one of the Hawaiian islands - Maui.
In August 1961, a son was born to the couple - Barack Hussein Obama. Dunham Ann left school to care for her child. At this time, her husband received an academic degree, and soon left for Cambridge to study at Harvard University.
Anne filed for divorce in January 1964. The husband was not opposed, therefore already in March of that year they were divorced. The father only visited his son once, when he was ten years old.
After some time, Dunham met at his University of Hawaii with her second husband, Indonesian Lolo Sutoro. Young people got married in 1966 and moved to Jakarta. In her second marriage, she gave birth to a daughter, Maya Sutoro.
This marriage was also short-lived. Six years later, Ann Dunham returned to her mother, who was engaged in raising a grandson. Finally, the couple divorced in 1980.
Scientific activity
Dunham was actively involved in rural development. After the divorce in 1974, Ann continued her education in Honolulu, while also raising children. In 1977, Ann Dunham left for Indonesia with her daughter to conduct field anthropological work. Son Barak did not want to go, he stayed with his grandmother and grandfather in Hawaii, where he studied at school.
In 1992, Ann received a Ph.D. in anthropology from the same university. Her dissertation at the end of 2009 was reprinted with a foreword by her daughter Maya by Duke University Press.
During her career, she collaborated with organizations such as the Ford Foundation, the United States Agency for International Development, and the Bank of Indonesia. She also worked as a consultant in the Pakistani city of Lahore. She interacted with Indonesian human rights organizations and people involved in the struggle for women's rights. Dunham Ann has developed microfinance programs in Indonesia.
last years of life
Soon after Ann became a Ph.D. in 1994, she was diagnosed with uterine cancer. By this time, it had already spread to the ovaries. Dunham was forced to return to her mother in Hawaii.
On November 7 of the following year, Ann died of cancer in Honolulu, Hawaii in the United States.
A memorial service was held at the University of Hawaii, after which Barak and his sister Maya dispelled the ashes of his mother on the southern Pacific coast of Oahu. President-elect Barack Obama also did with the ashes of his grandmother in December 2008.
In the fall of 2008, a conference was held at the University of Hawaii in memory of the scientist Anne Dunham.
Religious views
Dunham's school friend Maxine Boxing said on Barack’s campaign that Ann was an atheist: she challenged, argued, and compared.
Maya's daughter believes that her mother was not an atheist, rather, an agnostic. Anne introduced the children, as Maya said, to good books: the Christian Bible, Hindu and Buddhist books. The woman led her children to the understanding that in each of these books there is something beautiful for growing up. She also believed that Jesus was a wonderful example, but at the same time understood that many Christians did not behave in a Christian way.
As Obama said, religion for his mother was one of the ways a person tried to find out the unknown about our lives.
In 2007, in his presidential speech, he also said that his mother was one of the most spiritual people. But at the same time, she had a healthy skepticism towards religion as an institution.
Thus, Stanley Ann Dunham, whose biography was based on an active life position, knew what she wanted to achieve. And she did it. She built a good career, became a doctor of sciences, one raised two children.
