The Obama connection...

Tuesday, the fifth of June 1900, Calvin Read, the official enumerate for the 1900 U.S. Census of Argonia, Dixon Township, Sumner, State of Kansas, left the home of Austin Newbold, an Argonia school teacher and his wife Lizzie, a druggist, and moved next door to the home of pharmacist Jacob William Dunham. The Dunham family was known to Calvin. He had visited them before, in the same rented house, when he was an enumerator for the 1895 State of Kansas Census.

Since I wasn't there and since neither Calvin nor any of the Dunhams are around to tell me, I can only imagine that Calvin sat down at the kitchen table with Jacob's wife Mary, since she was at home busy raising children and keeping house while Jacob was most likely at work in the pharmacy. Calvin learned that they had three additional children. When he visited in March of 1895, the Dunhams had lived in Argonia for only a year or so, having moved there from Labette County, Kansas and were the parents of four children, Hattie, age 6; Mable, age 4; Frank, age 3 and baby Ralph who had been born in Argonia on Christmas Day 1894. Now, there were four additional siblings: Cristabel, age 4; Pearl, age 3 and little Earl, age 1.

In visiting with Mary, Calvin learned a little about the family background of both Jacob and Mary. He learned that Jacob had been born in Indiana and that his father Jacob Mackey Dunham had been born in a section of Virginia that since 1963 has been a part of West Virginia. It wasn't required for his Census information but Mary may have told Calvin that Jacob's father, Jacob Mackey Dunham was a Veteran of the Civil War having served as a private in E. Company, of the 46 Regiment of Indiana Infantry and he had moved from Indiana to Labette County, Kansas to farm, sometime after the War and now resided in Oklahoma territory. Mary did tell Calvin that her father had been born in Ireland and had immigrated to America, ending up in Indiana, where she was born. She may have told him that her father Falmouth Kearney died when she was only nine years old.

I don't know if Calvin was the enumerator that would eventually visit the Argonia home of Jacob and Mary Dunham for the Kansas Census of 1905, but whoever it was found that Jacob was still a pharmacist in Argonia and Mary was still keeping house and busy raising their eight children, one more than Calvin had enumerated in 1900. Little Dewey had been born in 1901.

By the time the 1910 U.S. Census rolled around the Jacob Dunham family had left Argonia for the big city of Wichita and Jacob was now manufacturing medical supplies. Some of his children worked in his factory. Jacob eventually went back to being a pharmacist and later became a physician. He was obviouly interested in improving his lot and that of his family.

Ralph (Ralph Waldo Emerson) Dunham born in Argonia Christmas Day 1894, married Ruth Lucille Armour in Wichita in 1915. In 1920 Ralph was working as a mechanic (later working in the tooling department of Boeing Aircraft) and he and his wife Ruth and their two children Ralph, Jr., age 3 and Stanley, age 1 were living with her parents, Harry and Gabrielle Armour. Ruth tragically committed suicide in 1926. Ralph died in Wichita in 1970.

Ralph and Ruth's son, Stanley, born in Wichita in 1918 was an Army Sergeant during WW2 he later worked as a furniture salesman. He married Madelyn Lee Payne in 1940. Madelyn born 1922 in Kansas, the daughter of Rolla Charles Payne and Leona McCurry would later become a bank vice-president. Stanley Dunham died in 1992, and is buried in the Punchbowl Cemetery in Honolulu.

Stanely and Madelyn Dunham had a daughter Ann Dunham born in 1942 in Kansas. In 1960 she married Barack Hussein Obama, PhD, a senior economist in the Kenyan Ministry of Finance. They were divorced in 1963. Barack Hussein Obama died in a car crash in Kenya in 1982. Barack and Ann had a maile child, Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., born in Honolulu on August 4, 1961. Barack Obama, Jr., is currently endeavoring to be the Democratic candidate for president of these United States of America. If Calvin only knew.

(Article originally appeared in the April 10, 2009, Argonia Argosy. Submitted by Stan Reed, Argonia class of 1961.)