Let me respond partially to some of your questions, first off the party pictures showing Sr did not contain images of Stanley Armour Dunham, the man people mistakenly identified as him was actually Arnold Nachmanoff. Arnie and Susie hosted the party where the pictures were taken and what is most noticeable in those pictures is the absence of Ann Dunham. None of Sr’s friends in their letters of remembrance mentions her with the exception of Neil Abercrombie whose statements are suspicious. Arnie at the time was finishing off his military requirement and the party was held at base housing in Pearl Harbor.
Yes Ann was enrolled in extension courses at the University of Washington beginning in August of 1961. I don’t believe she went back to Hawaii until well after Sr had left. We know Sr left Hawaii June 22,1962 and we also know that Ann was still in WA state in September of 1962 as we have the testimony of one of her friends who visited Ann at that time. The reason I believe that Ann did not return to HI after her surprise visit in August of 1961 is the lack of baby pictures. One baby picture has now been posted on line but I believe it is of an at least 9 month old because of the fact that the baby can hold his head up quite well.(possibly taken as an anniversary present for her parents, anniversary of May 4 or 5) Babies at that time were not as developmentally advanced as they are now. The baby photo is a professional one with no one else appearing in it. There are no photos of mom and baby and no photos of either grandma or grandpa with the baby and yet once Ann had returned to Hawaii there are plenty of pictures of a growing Jr including pictures of him with his mother and with grandpa.
With Kezia using the term Ann was like a sister to me, I think to the sister wives of the FLDS where the women refer to the other wives as sister wives. Kezia’s own father had 3 wives and it was a situation Kezia was familiar with so it would seem natural for her to refer to Ann as sister.
The matter of having more than one birthday doesn’t seem to be registered only for Jr. There are also two reported birth dates for his sister Maya.
Ruth was the teacher Sr met while he was attending Harvard and he told friends he hooked up with her because she had money which allowed him more enjoyment than simply struggling as a student on scholarship. He also admitted he was a serial polygamist but only one woman at a time. I am still wondering if the “....Kenyan student who split, leaving two pregnant blondes behind...” that Frank Marshall Dvis wrote about was in fact Sr but I haven’t gathered any evidence of this yet.
When Sr returned to Kenya in 1964 (not 1965 as reported elsewhere) Ruth followed him. He wanted Ruth to live in the same house in Nairobi as Kezia was living in but Ruth would not have it so Sr and Ruth lived in a home with his two children by Kezia(Roy and Auma) The marriage to Ruth only lasted 7 years and Ruth finally filed for divorce after one beating too many. As far as I can tell they divorced in 1971, the same year Sr had one of his many car accidents and the year he visited Jr in Hawaii. Taking the two boys from the marriage (Mark and David) she moved to Tanzania and remarried. David died in a motorcycle accident and Mark, as we know, lives and works in China. Ruth is a kindergarten teacher in Tanzania even now and was abrupt with the media when questioned about Jr. (saying, “I suppose I am a step mother”)
As far as any divorce records for Ann and Sr none have been found as of yet. One reason she might have filed was for matters of custody, we only have the “official story”
I don’t understand your question regarding why Grandma Dunham looked after Jr instead of working. By the end of 1962 she had been named manager of the escrow dept at Bankoh and steadily rose within the Bank. Ann returned to school by spring of 1963 and Grandpa took care of Jr more than Grandma or Ann. I will note Ann faced criticism from her family when she received her B.A. in math as it was seen as a “useless degree”.
As you mention there is a neat little timeline from his “fairytale” and yet it is confusing wondering why he simply doesn’t produce that birth certificate he mentioned finding while he was a teen. He did screw up when he mentioned being shown the first home his grandparents had lived in when they moved to Hawaii saying it was the home before the one on University Ave, which would be the one on Kamehameha Avenue. One wonders if anything in his “fairytale” is true!
booooooookmark