Obama’s Late Grandmother Voted For Him The Week Before She Died

Barack Obama’s grandmother never lived to see the potential history her grandson would make on November 4, 2008. She died the day before the U.S. presidential election, a tragic irony that tinges the race for the Democratic candidate with both joy at a hoped-for win and sadness that the woman who played such a key part in his life won’t be there to see it.

But Madelyn Dunham, who raised the young boy in Hawaii when his mother and her husband lived overseas, didn’t go without making one last huge contribution to Obama’s historic run for the White House.

It turns out she voted for her grandson in an absentee ballot on October 27th, just over a week before she succumbed to cancer at the age of 86.

According to Hawaii’s Chief Elections Officer Kevin Cronin, the ballot meets all the requirements for an absentee vote, is legal and will be counted.

Obama took precious time off a week ago to visit Dunham in the paradise state. He frequently made reference to her as he stumped for votes during the campaign.

“She’s the one who taught me about hard work,” he noted in August. “She’s the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me.”

On Monday, he paid an emotional tribute to her while whipping up final support in North Carolina. “She’s gone home,” he intoned to thousands of well wishers. “And she died peacefully in her sleep with my sister at her side. And so there is great joy as well as tears.”

Republican opponent John McCain sent his official condolences to his rival, even as both looked to convince voters to give them their support. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to them as they remember and celebrate the life of someone who had such a profound impact in their lives,” he wrote in a statement.

By all accounts, Dunham was an exceptional woman. She’d lived in the same small two bedroom apartment she shared with her husband Stanley – the same place where she passed away on Monday.

She toiled on a bomber assembly line during WWII and later went to university. But even though she never earned a degree, Dunham still managed to work her way up from a secretary to a vice-president of a bank.

It was that determination that spurred Obama on. “Every morning, she woke up at 5am and changed from the frowsy muumuus she wore around the apartment into a tailored suit and high-heeled pumps,” he noted in his memoir “Dreams from My Father.”

That same determination kept her going through her illness, and though confined to a wheelchair, she insisted on doing things for herself right up until the end.

A small and private ceremony will be held after the election for a remarkable woman who never got to see history in the making – but was one of the key figures who helped make it happen.