I view the timeline for August, 1961 as critical to an understanding of the events of the birth period.
My hypothesis for what happened is that Stanley Ann and Obama Sr. went to Kenya at the end of first term classes at U of Hawaii (late January early February 1961) and were married there on February 4, 1961 as she says in her divorce affidavit. They did that because to have married in Hawaii would have constituted the crime of bigamy.
He returned to Hawaii immediately and attended classes winter spring term in 1961 and his attendance is confirmed. The reason she disappears from the record on February 4 is because she stayed in Kenya.
She attempted to return in July but was refused transport by BOAC per the witnesses. The baby was born, presumably on August 4 early in the day (still August 3 on the West Coast USA); as soon as possible, she was on a BOAC flight to return.
Copies of the actual physical BOAC flight schedules for August 1961 are posted early on the long thread and read in conjunction with the connecting flight from Mombasa to Nairobi, identify the actual flights she took to connect at Nairobi to a BOAC flight through Glaskow, Scotland and Vancouver British Columbia which is why she told some of her friends in Seattle that she had come from Vancouver.
That doesn't exclude the possibility that he was born earlier than August 4 but I don't think that is likely or necessary to meet my August 8 timeline.
I see the Susan Blake and other visits in August as having taken place on August 5 & 6 & 7 with Stanley Ann having returned to Hawaii on a flight that left Seattle about 3:00 PM on the 7th; with her having made some kind of birth filing in Hawaii on the 8th.
Now I recognize that as a tight line; yes I have heard all the whining about mothers staying in the hospital for a week; about the problems hauling a newborn halfway around the world; but in my experience I have seen stuff like this all the time. Grandma could have done the affidavit filing on August 8 in Hawaii herself but I just don't believe she would have done it that way.
I suppose it is also not fatal to my hypothesis to have had her in class on August 19 at the University of Washington but that didn't happen either. The campus was dead as a doornail from the end of summer quarter in early August until sometime in late September.
Having lived in the Seattle area and had a son go to school there (although 2 decades later) I can attest to that as the normal pattern for UW. The same would have been true for UC Berkeley (where I was during the same time period Ann was in Seattle) or any West Coast school on the SEMESTER system. Not much going on -- even the sorority and fraternity houses are locked up.
Didn't mean to whine. The part about staying in the hospital for a week was true in this country, but it was only meant to illustrate that sometimes the mother did not have the opportunity to practice the art of DIAPERING! And despite my complaining (I was a big wuss at motherhood) my husband and I drove our firstborn all the way from Illinois back to CA at 4 weeks, dragging a U Haul larger than the car and stopping only once in ARK for a brief respite with one of his relatives. Then we had to look for a house to rent, etc., etc. It was grueling, but we did it.
My aunt (all by herself) hauled 3 kids in a little coupe, including a premature newborn in a basket all the way from Mississippi to San Francisco to join her husband for deployment to Japan for the Occupation at the end of WWII. My mother thought she was crazy, but she did it and all survived.
Of course, neither of those tales compares to the Chinese women in Pearl Buck's "The Good Earth" who delivered their babies in the fields and went right back to work. (rolling eyes)
That last comment of mine was meant to be lighthearted joking. I hope you took it in that vein. I appreciate all your comments and all the work you have done to figure thise out. Thanks.
Your 7822
Documents for baby Obama to get on the plane in Kenya..
What did she use ???