Misery Index

A campaign aide said the 86-year-old Dunham died late Nov. 2nd at her home in Honolulu, and Obama was notified of his grandmother's death around 8 AM Monday morning [2am HI time].  That morning Obama appeared at a rally in Florida without making an announcement.  A written statement was issued around 4:30 PM, in the name of Obama and his sister, before he spoke at an evening rally in Charlotte.  The delay was intended to allow his sister, who was six hours behind in Hawaii, time to take care of a few details before news of the death became public.

When Obama made the announcement on Nov.3rd that his grandmother had died, a campaign spokesman declined to say when the service would be held, referring to the statement, which mentions a "small private ceremony to be held at a later date."  Obama's campaign said he will return to Honolulu sometime in December although they will not specify exactly when he will arrive.

So everyone seems to want to know why?  Well, first it's not uncommon for funerals to be held more than a week after the death of a Hawaii resident because of the time it takes to fly to the islands, Jerry Andrade, funeral home manager of Borthwick Mortuary stated, which is handling Dunham's arrangements.  And this would make sense since Obama's family is quite large, and lives pretty much all over the place. 

Secondly, Dunham has been cremated.  In an email, Maya Soetoro-Ng stated that Dunham's koa (wood) urn arrived on Election Day.  So again, the delay is not unusual.  Many times those that have been cremated do not have ceremonies for them until a later date.  The fact is, Dunham is not "on ice" as Debbie Schlussel has said.

Borthwick Mortuary in Hawaii is handling the arrangements.  Officials at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific have since been contacted by Borthwick Mortuary about holding a service for Madelyn Dunham, says Gene Castagnetti, the cemetery's director.

During a family vacation in August, Obama brought his family to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.  Obama and his children left two leis at niche No. 440, where the ashes of his grandfather Stanley Dunham are in an urn behind a bronze plaque.  Stanley Dunham was an Army sergeant in WWII; he died of prostate cancer in 1992.  Madelyn is eligible to be inurned here, alongside her husband.

Stanley Dunham's niche is large enough to hold another urn.  If the family decides on that arrangement, Sergeant Dunham's bronze plaque covering the niche would be removed and replaced with another that would include his wife's name, birthday and date of death.

There will be a public service for Dunham this upcoming Friday at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl according to Gene Castagnetti, Borthwick cemetery's director.

Schlussel, you are out of line, simply because you chose to run your "fingers" to degrade instead of doing your job by accurately doing research before posting/publishing.  I don't care if you have millions of readers, I don't care how popular you are.  The fact of the matter is, you are WAY out of line, and make anyone look bad who is trying to prove points about Obama  with your inaccurate statements because you'd rather slam Obama instead of trying to do your damn job.  So go ahead and now slam me, a little nobody of a blogger, who shows you for what you really are, and took a whole 10 minutes to do a bit of searching to find information.  What are you going to do?  Whine about it?  Blog about it?  *SNORT*

ADDITIONAL SOURCES:

• Time
• Soetoro-Ng's email to the Hawaii Advertiser [PDF]
• The Wall Street Journal
• International Herald Tribune