By Melissa Chapman, Cataloging Supervisor

You would think that as much hullabaloo we’ve heard about our current president concerning his birth and religious preferences, we would have heard a little bit more about the woman who gave life to such a controversial president.

During Barack Obama’s run for the presidency we heard about her struggles with her insurance company as she fought for her life. We also heard about her struggles as a single mother on food stamps raising a bi-racial son with the help of her parents. Yet we didn’t hear about the passionate exotic independent life she led. And what a life she did lead!

Before I read “A Singular Woman” I thought that I was a lot like Ann in the sense that I was a struggling single mother who relied on the kindness of her family to help her raise her sons, and who also, like Ann, struggled with insurance coverage. However when I began to read about this extraordinary woman, I realized that we had very little in common save for the struggles of single parenthood.

“A Singular Woman,” written by Janny Scott, gives us a unique picture of Stanley Ann, a strong-willed, impulsive, financially stressed, philanthropic, woman who admittedly made many mistakes in her personal life, yet never gave up her dream of making certain her children had integrity along with an excellent education.

With success there comes a price, and Stanley Ann’s life was rocky, often lonely, riddled with stormy marriages as well as heartache. Even though she loved her family, she was more passionate about anthropological work in Indonesia than parenting her two children.

The only disappointment I had with “A Singular Woman” was that it lacked the presence of Obama and how he felt about the choices his mother made and what effect that had on him. My hope is that President Obama will write a more detailed autobiography later and discuss the major role his mother played in his life.

In the end whether you agree with her choices or her politics, Stanley Ann Dunham led a life worth reading even if she weren’t a U.S. president’s mother. She wasn’t your typical girl from the Midwest. The girl named Stanley, like the “Boy named Sue,” learned to think for herself and ignore the constraints of the norm. She no doubt had the courage to carve out her own history.