Madelyn Lee Payne was born in Peru, Kansas, the daughter of Rolla Charles and Leona (McCurry) Payne. She recalled them as "stern Methodist parents who did not believe in drinking, playing cards or dancing." She moved with her parents to Augusta, Kansas at age of three. Madelyn was one of the best students in her high school graduating class in 1940. Despite her strict upbringing, she liked to go to Wichita, Kansas to see big band concerts. While in Wichita, she met Kansas-born Stanley Armour Dunham from the oil-town of El Dorado, Kansas and the "other side of the railroad tracks." Stanley attended El Dorado High School.

The Dunhams were Baptists. Unlike the Paynes, Stanley Dunham did not come from a white-collar background. At age 8, Stanley discovered his mother's body after she had committed suicide. Following his mother's suicide, his father abandoned the family and Stanley and his brother, Ralph, was sent to live with his maternal grandparents in El Dorado, Kansas. Described as "gregarious, friendly, impetuous, challenging and loud," he was a furniture salesman "who could charm the legs off a couch." Madelyn's parents did not approve of their marriage, which occurred on May 5, 1940.

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Awful that his grandmother died. Sometimes the timing of things in our lives is beyond weird and beyond cruel. Regardless. It is sad that his grandmother had not been healthy and had not been able to live to enjoy this time in her and her grandson's life.