thanks STARWISE for the first two links -
http://www.seattleweekly.com/2008-10-22/news/may-the-best-mom-win/
Meanwhile, Obama’s mother, whose parents Madelyn and Stanley Dunham had moved here from Kansas a decade earlier, left Mercer Island in 1960. But she returned to live in Seattle around 1962, after Barack was born in August 1961, leaving her husband, Kenya-born Barack Sr., and his newborn namesake in Hawaii. She lived on Capitol Hill and enrolled at the University of Washington.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2009/01/14/did-baby-barack-obama-live-here/
In the 1961-1962 Polk Directory, a commercial index of people and businesses in Seattle, there is a listing for a student named “Anna Obama,” a woman who just might have been our next president’s mother.
According to a Seattle Times article published last year, Barack Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, twice lived in the Emerald City. First in her youth, as a student at Mercer Island High School. Then later as a single mother, when she enrolled for a spring semester at the University of Washington. We know she lived for a short time in an apartment on Capitol Hill by 1962 — but not much has been published about where.
Enter the Polk Directory. Assuming the woman listed there really was Obama’s mother, it would appear that she — and quite possibly her infant son — lived in a building then located at 516 13th Ave. E.
One detail puts that assumption in doubt. Obama’s mother’s name was Stanley Ann Dunham — Stanley Ann Obama after she married Obama’s father. Yet the index lists an “Anna.” It is possible this was another woman, archival experts said. But typos were not unheard of in the Polk directories, archival experts told me. Besides, the Polk Directory is not a legal document; those listed did not have to give their official name.
What’s more: No other Obamas appear in the 1961-1962 directory, and a peek through the surrounding 1960 and 1963 editions of the index turn up no one by that name...
So where did Anna’s baby go? Who was it maintained they visited her during the World Fair and did not mention a child?
THE OBAMA FILE
http://72.52.208.92/~gbpprorg/obama/AnnasBeatnikPeriod.html
Sighting by John W. Hunt in June-Sept 1962
— “I had moved to Utah for a while after high school, and I came back to Seattle in the summer of 1962. I remember visiting the World’s Fair, and then stopping by Stanley Ann’s apartment on Capitol Hill. It was a small apartment, upstairs. It was after June, and could have been as late as September, 1962. I visited her for half a day or so. It was after the end of the spring quarter classes, and she wasn’t in classes, and didn’t have a job. I recall her being melancholy at the time. I had a sense that something wasn’t right in her.”
Beckwith, wasn’t it John Hunt who said ‘she’ went looking for him in Boston and came back ‘melancholy’? I cannot find that original John Hunt interview.
found a reprint...and more, you wisely told me a long time ago, it’s a waste of time trying to follow the timelines, and of course you were right...
Whatever the nature of the event, it was of sufficient significance to cause Stanley Ann Dunham to leave Barack Obama Senior and move thousands of miles from Honolulu to Seattle. In March, 1962, Stanley Ann Dunham moved from Honolulu to Seattle, Washington, where she enrolled as a full time student at the University of Washington for the spring quarter, which continued until June, 1962, and got her own apartment. She enrolled in classes and earned 10 credit hours that quarter.
Seattle Times journalist Jonathan Martin reports that some high school classmates recall visiting her and her young son alternately at the Laurelhurst student housing, then at a Capitol Hill apartment during the period that stretched from March 1962 to at least September 1962. (43)
It appears that Stanley Ann Dunham intended this move to be a permanent one, away from the painful memories of Hawaii, her estranged husband, and her parents. Though she had found the courses she had taken at the University of Hawaii surprisingly stimulating, she had never wanted to go there in the first place.
The University of Chicago was no longer an option for financial reasons, but as a graduate of a high school in the state of Washington, she could still claim the lower tuition rate of a Washington resident there. It had been her second choice initially, after all, one that was superior to the University of Hawaii in her mind.
During these months though she was visited by some classmates, she did not actively seek to re-connect with many of her Mercer High School friends, suggesting that perhaps she was not interesting in letting them know the painful details of her personal story. Good friend Maxine Box, whose mother fed her chocolate cake after school while the two girls did their home work, attended the University of Washington during this time, and was not even aware that Dunham was living in Seattle and also attending the University of Washington at this time.
High school friend John W. Hunt apparently visited her at her Laurelhurst student apartment or her Capitol Hill apartment, as did another class mate, Barbara Cannon Rusk. Rusk recalls visiting Stanley Ann Dunham and her baby son Barack at her apartment on Capitol Hill in Seattle shortly after the end of these spring quarter classes.
I had moved to Utah for a while after high school, and I came back to Seattle in the summer of 1962. I remember visiting the World’s Fair, and then stopping by Stanley Ann’s apartment on Capitol Hill. It was a small apartment, upstairs. It was after June, and could have been as late as September, 1962. I visited her for half a day or so. It was after the end of the spring quarter classes, and she wasn’t in classes, and didn’t have a job. I recall her being melancholy at the time. I had a sense that something wasn’t right in her marriage. It was all very mysterious. First, her husband wasn’t there, he was already off in Harvard. I didn’t ask her about the relationship, feeling it was a private matter. My daughter Michelle was just a few weeks younger than Stanley’s son, who she called Barry, and they played together on the floor. (44)
As with Susan Blake and Maxine Box, Barbara Cannon Rusk never saw her friend Stanley Ann Dunham again...
Hunt has commented on Dunham and high school, I have no information about Hunt commenting on the alleged Boston trip.
The only reference to a “Boston trip” was Susan Blake’s.
He’s gone away with Stanley Ann...
Name: John W. Hunt
SSN: 538-32-8764
Last Residence: 98103 Seattle, King, Washington
Born: 23 Aug 1941
Died: 18 Apr 2010
State (Year) SSN issued: Washington (1953)
Have first hand experience with the problem and the above scenario certainly fits the pattern of an abusive relationship.
I thought she lived on the ground floor. If she didn't have a job, who was paying her bills?