Another nagging question: where did the Dunhams get the money to move to Hawaii? This would have been a costly move. So it’s not only “why?” but also “how?” What kind of trouble might Stanley or Stanley Ann have been in, and who might have bankrolled them?
This may be a case of “follow the money.”
That is a good question. And you’re right — it would have been very costly. It hardly seems likely that a Furniture Store would foot the bill.
But, I do know this: the Communist Party did things like that — finance their people into the places they needed to be. I lived in Berkeley from 1956 until 1968 — first as a student and then as a mother/housewife. There was a neighborhod near me surrounding Oxford Elementary school that was notorious for having a lot of Communists. Everybody said the the CPUSA bankrolled them into their houses. It is true that they did not seem to have the means to get into those houses. In my own neighborhood a rather famous Commie moved in just as I was moving away because I could no longer stand Berkeley and didn’t not want my children growing up there. I heard from my realtor that he had been present when this man came looking for a house. He had no money and had no idea what a “down payment” was (you needed 20% down in Berkeley at the time — no cheap deals, except in the suburbs). When it was explained to him that he would have to come up with 20% cash, he said he didn’t have it and went away. But he came back the very next week with the money. And guess what — the local CPUSA organizer gave him a “Welcome to the Neighborhood” party when he moved in. It was the talk of the real estate people at the time.
This happened in 1968. You would know this man’s name, but I won’t post it on the open Board. He’s had the lives of all Americans in his hands.