But it was that privacy, tightly guarded by the Obamas, that afforded Robinson the rare luxury of being able to live relatively freely in the White House and without the usual scrutiny that follows every first family – while still enjoying the perks of being the president’s mother-in-law.

Growing up in Chicago, she may never have dreamed that her daughter would one day be the first lady of the United States. On election night, holding Barack Obama’s hand, she said to him: “Well, it’s just a little overwhelming, isn’t it?”

Robinson moved into the White House – albeit reluctantly at first – and played a unique and crucial role. As the affectionately known “first grandma”, she brought some normality to the lives of her granddaughters, Malia and Sasha.

In 2019, Barack Obama said: “I’ve always appreciated her steadiness, her perspective, and the way a wisecrack from her reverberates around the room.”

Following her death on Friday at the age of 86, the former president paid tribute in a statement to the “extraordinary gift of her life”.

‘A deeply segregated Chicago’

Marian Lois Shields was born in 1937 in Chicago’s South Side and grew up in a small house with seven siblings.

She married Fraser Robinson III, a pump operator for Chicago’s water department, in 1960, and they had two children – Craig in 1962 and Michelle two years later. Robinson worked as a secretary and for a bank before becoming a stay-at-home mother.

Michelle Obama often talks about growing up on the South Side of Chicago – the poorer part of the city that has a large African-American population. In the 1960s, Chicago’s public schools were still actively resisting racial integration.

A proud mother

Marian and Fraser Robinson worked hard to ensure their children could go to some of the best schools in the country. Mr Robinson continued to work full-time even after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and the pair took out secret loans to afford the school fees.

“We just wanted our children to understand that a good education was their ticket to a better life, a chance to have more and be more,” Robinson once said.

It paid off – both Craig and Michelle graduated from Ivy League universities.

In Michelle Obama’s podcast, she talks to her brother about the honest and open discussions they would have with their parents as children, where nothing was off limits and no question was too embarrassing to ask.

“She always took us seriously, carefully considering what we had to say and responding with thoughtful questions, and plenty of encouragement,” Mrs Obama said.

This resulted in her brother scoring so highly on a sexual education test that concerned teachers called his parents to the school for a meeting.

After 31 years of marriage, Fraser Robinson III died in 1991. Marian stayed living in the family home in Chicago until she moved to the White House in 2009.

‘First grandma’

When that day finally came, Robinson moved into the White House “kicking and screaming”, according to her son.

Having never lived outside of Chicago, she prized her independence and was reluctant to leave her friends, weekly yoga classes and the “itty-bitty house” she had lived in for decades.

“The White House reminds me of a museum, and it’s like, how do you sleep in a museum?” she said to People magazine at the time.

But she soon adjusted, and took up a unique role as “first grandma” to the Obamas’ daughters, Malia and Sasha, who were aged 10 and seven at the time.

“My job here is the easiest one of all: I just get to be Grandma,” she wrote in Essence Magazine in 2017.

Robinson insisted on doing her own laundry and also taught the girls how to do theirs. She rode in the motorcade that took Malia and Sasha to school, to take the edge off the trip that involved three cars and at least four armed security agents.

She was the constant in a life of travel, tours and long days for Barack and Michelle Obama, taking the girls to play dates, piano lessons and dance class.

“When I wasn’t home at the end of the day, grandma was there,” Michelle said in an interview with Gayle King of CBS in 2018.

In her podcast, Michelle remembers that “sleepovers at Grandma’s were the biggest night of the week, because you’d get them food that they shouldn’t be eating… they slept in your bed, they kicked you out of your bed, I can’t believe it, you let them tear up your house and make forts out of the couch.”

Life in the White House

The matriarch quickly learned to embrace her new life in Washington DC – and made the most of the opportunities – attending dinners and concerts, and going to events at the Kennedy Center where she could sit in the president’s box.

“She has a very full social life, so much so that sometimes we have to plan our schedule around her schedule,” Michelle Obama said in 2009.

Not nearly as recognisable as her daughter or son-in-law, Robinson was able to go about her life quite freely, leaving the White House without security, and walking around the city.

She had a third-floor suite in the White House – and often announced “I’m going home”, as she headed upstairs.

Robinson joined the first family on a number of overseas trips – both for holidays and official visits, including accompanying her daughter and granddaughters on an official visit to China without Barack Obama in 2014.

It was a rare glimpse into the close relationship she had with Michelle, Malia and Sasha – and the bond between the four was obvious.

Robinson hung back with the sisters while her daughter took centre stage, and in a touching mother-daughter moment, grabbed Michelle’s heels out of the way when the first lady switched to flats to skip rope with some students.

Supportive mother-in-law

Robinson was initially against Barack Obama running for president.

“I felt like this was going to be a hard life. I was worried about their safety and about the girls,” she told Gayle King in 2018.

But gradually she warmed to the idea, and eventually became one of his biggest supporters.

A now-famous photo of the pair on election night quietly holding hands as the news broke that he would be the next president epitomised the quiet solidarity she had with her family.

Marian Robinson will be remembered by many as the loving, grounded and tough-minded matriarch of the White House, who took to a role she did not ask for and at first did not want, with dignity and selflessness to become the bedrock of the Obama family.

Here’s to you, Mrs Robinson.

By BBC News

The post Obituary: Marian Robinson, Michelle Obama’s mother, dies appeared first on KahawaTungu.

In a statement, her family said that Robinson had died “peacefully” on Friday morning.

Robinson was a well-known fixture at the White House during the eight years of Barack Obama’s administration between 2009 and 2017.

She spent much of that time taking care of her two granddaughters, Michelle and Barack Obama’s daughters Malia and Sasha.

In a statement posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Mrs Obama called Robinson her “rock, always there for whatever I needed”.

“She was the same steady backstop for our entire family, and we are heartbroken to share she passed away today,” she wrote.

In a separate tweet, Mr Obama said that “there was and will be only one Marian Robinson”.

“In our sadness, we are lifted up by the extraordinary gift of her life,” he added. “And we will spend the rest of ours trying to live up to her example.”

No further details were given about the cause of death.

Born in 1937, Robinson grew up one of seven children in Chicago, the city where she spent much of her life before agreeing to come to Washington DC after Mr Obama’s electoral victory.

Early in her life, she studied to become a teacher before working as a secretary. She raised Michelle and her other child, Craig, together with her husband Frasier Robinson on Chicago’s South Side.

“At every step, as our families went down paths none of us could have predicted, she remained our refuge from the storm,” the Obama statement said.

“On Election Night in 2008, when the news broke that Barack would soon shoulder the weight of the world, she was there, holding his hand.”

An image taken on the night in 2008 when her son-in-law made history as the nation’s first African-American president showed Robinson sitting on a sofa with him, watching the results come in.

The statement added that Robinson had agreed to move to the White House after a “healthy nudge” from Barack and Michelle Obama, who, along with their daughters, “needed her”.

It was said that she insisted on doing her own laundry there.

In a later interview with CBS, the BBC’s US partner, Robinson said she felt compelled to move to Washington because she felt “like this was going to be a very hard life” for her daughter and son-in-law.

“And I was worried about their safety,” she added. “I was worried about my grandkids. That’s what got me to move to DC.”

The lifelong Chicago resident had never boarded a flight out of the US until she flew aboard Air Force One with the Obamas to France in 2009.

Robinson – whom Mr Obama once called “the least pretentious person” he knew – said that it was a “huge adjustment” to have her needs met by White House staff.

“Rather than hobnobbing with Oscar winners or Nobel laureates, she preferred spending her time upstairs with a TV tray, in the room outside her bedroom with big windows that looked out at the Washington Monument,” the family statement said.

“The only guest she made a point of asking to meet was the Pope,” it added.

Her privacy afforded her a freedom envied by the rest of her family. David Axelrod, a senior Obama advisor, told CNN on Friday “she would often slip out of the White House on her own and visit with friends”,

“She really wasn’t looking for attention,” he added.

On Mother’s Day – just weeks before Robinson’s death – Mrs Obama announced that an exhibit at the Obama Presidential Center Museum in Chicago would be named in her honour.

“In so many ways, she fostered in me a deep sense of confidence in who I was and who I could be, by teaching me to think for myself,” Mrs Obama said in a video announcement.

“I simply wouldn’t be who I am today without my mom.”

By BBC News

The post Michelle Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, dies at 86 appeared first on KahawaTungu.