"I had them read 'The Communist Manifesto,' and the parents went nuts,"
said Wichterman, adding that parents also didn't want any discussions about
"anything to do with sex," religion and theology. The parental protests were
known as "mothers' marches."
"The kids started questioning things that their folks thought shouldn't be
questioned -- religion, politics, parental authority," said John Hunt, a
classmate. "And a lot of parents didn't like that, and they tried to get them
[Wichterman and Foubert] fired."
The Dunhams did not join the uproar. Madelyn and Stanley shed their
Methodist and Baptist upbringing and began attending Sunday services at the
East Shore Unitarian Church in nearby Bellevue.
"In the 1950s, this was sometimes known as 'the little Red church on the
hill,' " said Peter Luton, the church's senior minister, referring to the
effects of McCarthyism. Skepticism, the kind that Stanley embraced and passed
on to his daughter, was welcomed here.
For Stanley Ann, the teachings of Foubert and Wichterman provided an
intellectual stimulant and an affirmation that there indeed was an interesting
life beyond high school dances, football games and all-night slumber party
chatter.
Their high school class was an in-between generation. The Beat generation
had passed, and the 1960s era of protest was yet to begin. Classmates of
Dunham -- Wall, Blake, Hunt -- felt they were on the cusp of societal change,
the distant early warning of the '60s struggles over civil rights, women's
rights and war.
"If you were concerned about something going wrong in the world, Stanley
would know about it first," said Chip Wall, who described her as "a fellow
traveler. . . . We were liberals before we knew what liberals were."
One classmate, Jill Burton-Dascher, said Stanley Ann "was intellectually
way more mature than we were and a little bit ahead of her time, in an
off-center way."
The two Stanleys, though, were not soul mates. Stanley the father "was
always welcoming to the kids, but he embarrassed Stanley because he tried too
hard," Maxine Box said. The two would argue, Box said, and Madelyn usually
mediated.
Susan Blake said Stanley's father was "always looking for a rise out of
people," Blake said. "It seemed like every time her father opened his mouth,
she would roll her eyes."
Full emergence in Hawaii
When the Mercer Island High School yearbooks began circulating in the
spring of 1960, Stanley Ann's senior year, classmates scribbled best wishes to
friends and remembered slumber parties, one mother's exceptionally good
chocolate cake and thoughts on some goofy boys.
Dunham wrote to Maxine Box: "Remember me when you are old and gray. Love &
Luck, Stanley." Seemingly out of the blue, her father had found a better
opportunity -- another furniture store, this one in Hawaii. "He just couldn't
settle," Box recalled.
"I remember she didn't want to go to Hawaii," she added.
That was only the first surprise. Stanley Ann began classes at the
University of Hawaii in 1960, and shortly after that, Box received a letter
saying that her friend had fallen in love with a grad student. He was black,
from Kenya and named Obama.
About that same time, another letter crossed the Pacific, this one heading
to Africa. It was from Barack Obama Sr. to his mother, Sarah Hussein Onyango
Obama. Though the letter didn't go into great detail, it said he had met a
young woman named Ann (not Stanley). There wasn't much on how they met or what
the attraction was, but he announced their plans to wed.
The Dunhams weren't happy. Stanley Ann's prospective father-in-law was
furious. He wrote the Dunhams "this long, nasty letter saying that he didn't
approve of the marriage," Obama recounted his mother telling him in "Dreams."
"He didn't want the Obama blood sullied by a white woman."
Parental objections didn't matter. For Stanley Ann, her new relationship
with Barack Obama and weekend discussions seemed to be, in part, a logical
extension of long coffeehouse sessions in Seattle and the teachings of
Wichterman and Foubert. The forum now involved graduate students from the
University of Hawaii. They spent weekends listening to jazz, drinking beer and
debating politics and world affairs.
The self-assured and opinionated Obama spoke with a voice so deep that "he
made James Earl Jones seem like a tenor," said Neil Abercrombie, a Democratic
congressman from Hawaii who was part of those regular gatherings.
While Obama was impatient and energized, Stanley Ann, whom Abercrombie
described as "the original feminist," was endlessly patient but quietly
passionate in her arguments. She was the only woman in the group.
