Madelyn Dunham, Obama's grandmother, dies at 86

Madelyn Dunham, who watched from afar as her only grandson rapidly ascended the ranks of U.S. politics to the brink of the presidency, did not live to see whether he was elected.

Dunham, 86, Senator Barack Obama's grandmother, died late Sunday evening in Hawaii after battling cancer, which Obama announced upon arriving here Monday for a campaign stop on the eve of Election Day.

"She has gone home," Obama said, his voice tinged with emotion as he briefly spoke of her death at a campaign rally here. "She died peacefully in her sleep with my sister at her side, so there's great joy instead of tears."

Obama learned of his grandmother's death at 8 a.m. Monday, aides said, but appeared at a morning rally in Florida without making an announcement. A written statement was issued around 4:30 p.m., 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.

Dunham was the final remaining immediate family member who helped raise Obama during his teenage years in Hawaii. He called her Toot, his shorthand for "tutu," a Hawaiian term for grandparent.

Obama broke from the presidential campaign trail in late October to travel to Honolulu to bid his grandmother farewell. He spent part of two days with her, as she lay gravely ill in the small apartment where he lived from age 10 to 18.

While Dunham was too sick to travel to see her grandson on the campaign trail, Obama and other family members said that she closely followed his bid for the presidency through cable television. Yet she became a figure in his campaign, seen through images in television commercials intended to give him a biographical anchor.

Dunham, who grew up near August, Kansas, moved with her husband, Stanley Dunham, to Hawaii. In the early stages of his candidacy, Obama spoke wistfully about his grandparents, whose all-American biography suddenly was critical to establishing his own story.

For Obama, the loss came on the final full day of his presidential campaign. Campaigning in New Mexico, Senator John McCain and his wife, Cindy, offered their condolences Monday, saying: "Our thoughts and prayers go out to them as they remember and celebrate the life of someone who had such a profound impact in their lives."

His grandmother's illness had been weighing on him in recent weeks, friends said, which is why he insisted on interrupting his schedule to visit her last month. While she was gravely ill, aides said, Obama carried on a limited conversation with her. He kept the visit to one day, advisers said, partly out of her own insistence that people not create a fuss.