Marian Robinson, the mother of Michelle Obama who lived in the White House, dies at 86

WASHINGTON — On election night time 2008, as Barack Obama sat nervously in a Chicago lodge suite and awaited information on whether or not he would turn into the nation’s first Black president, his mother-in-law was by his aspect.

“Are you prepared for this, Grandma?” Obama requested Marian Shields Robinson, who years earlier had doubted that he and her daughter, Michelle, would final.

Six months, tops, she had predicted.

“By no means one to overemote, my mother simply gave him a sideways look and shrugged, inflicting them each to smile,”

Michelle Obama wrote in her memoir, “Changing into.” “Later, although, she’d describe to me how overcome she’d felt proper then, struck simply as I’d been by his vulnerability. America had come to see Barack as confident and highly effective, however my mom additionally acknowledged the gravity of the passage, the loneliness of the job forward.”
She continued: “The following time I seemed over, I noticed that she and Barack had been holding arms.”

The union of Barack and Michelle Obama, the 20-something legal professionals who met one summer time whereas working at a Chicago legislation agency, endured and made historical past. In her personal approach, Mrs. Robinson would, too.

She died peacefully on Friday, the previous first woman and her brother, Craig Robinson, and their households introduced in an announcement.

“There was and shall be just one Marian Robinson,” they mentioned. “In our unhappiness, we’re lifted up by the extraordinary reward of her life. And we are going to spend the remainder of ours attempting to stay as much as her instance.”

Moreover being the mom of the nation’s first Black first woman, Mrs. Robinson was additionally uncommon for being one of many few in-laws who lived on the White Home with the president and his instant household.

Till January 2009, Mrs. Robinson had lived her total life in Chicago. She was a widow and in her early 70s when Obama was elected in 2008 and resisted the thought of beginning over in Washington. President Obama mentioned the household urged she strive Washington for 3 months earlier than deciding. The primary woman enlisted her brother to assist persuade their mom to maneuver.

“There have been many good and legitimate causes that Michelle raised with me, not the least of which was the chance to proceed spending time with my granddaughters, Malia and Sasha, and to help in giving them a way of normalcy that may be a precedence for each of their mother and father, as has been from the time Barack started his political profession,”

Mrs. Robinson wrote within the foreword to “A Recreation of Character,” a memoir by her son, previously the pinnacle males’s basketball coach at Oregon State College.

“My feeling, nonetheless, was that I might go to periodically with out truly transferring in and nonetheless be there for the women,” she mentioned.

Mrs. Robinson mentioned her son understood why she needed to remain in Chicago, however nonetheless used a line of reasoning on her that she would use on him and his sister. He requested her to consider the transfer as a possibility to develop and check out one thing new.

“As a compromise, I opted to maneuver to the White Home in any case, not less than quickly, whereas nonetheless reserving a number of time to journey and preserve a certain quantity of autonomy,” she wrote.

Granddaughters Malia and Sasha had been simply 10 and seven, respectively, once they began to name the chief mansion dwelling in 2009 after their dad turned president. In Chicago, Mrs. Robinson had turn into virtually a surrogate father or mother to them through the presidential marketing campaign. She retired from her job as a financial institution secretary to assist shuttle them round.

On the White Home, she was a reassuring presence, and her lack of Secret Service safety made it attainable for her to accompany them to and from faculty each day with out fanfare.

“I’d not be who I’m as we speak with out the regular hand and unconditional love of my mom, Marian Shields Robinson,” Michelle Obama wrote in her memoir. “She has at all times been my rock, permitting me the liberty to be who I’m, whereas by no means permitting my toes to get too far off the bottom. Her boundless love for my women, and her willingness to place our wants earlier than her personal, gave me the consolation and confidence to enterprise out into the world figuring out they had been protected and cherished at dwelling.”

Her White Home life was not restricted to caring for her granddaughters.

Mrs. Robinson loved a degree of anonymity that the president and first woman brazenly envied, permitting her to return and go from the White Home as typically as she happy on buying journeys round city, to the president’s field on the Kennedy Heart and to Las Vegas or to go to her different grandchildren in Portland, Oregon. She gave a number of media interviews however by no means to White Home press.

She attended some White Home occasions, together with live shows, the annual Easter Egg Roll and Nationwide Christmas Tree lighting, and was a visitor at some state dinners.

White Home residency additionally opened up the world to Mrs. Robinson, who had been widowed for almost 20 years when she moved to a room on the third ground, one ground above the primary household.

She had by no means traveled exterior the U.S. till she moved to Washington, taking her first flight overseas on Air Pressure One in 2009 when the Obamas visited France. She joined them on a visit to Russia, Italy and Ghana later that 12 months, throughout which she bought to fulfill Pope Benedict, tour Rome’s historical Colosseum and think about a former slave-holding compound on the African coast.

She additionally accompanied her daughter and granddaughters on two abroad journeys with out the president to South Africa and Botswana in 2011, and China in 2014.

Craig Robinson wrote that he and his mother and father doubted whether or not his sister’s relationship with Obama would final, although Fraser Robinson III and his spouse thought the younger lawyer was a worthy suitor for his or her daughter, additionally a lawyer. Craig Robinson and his mother and father had been sitting on the entrance porch of their Chicago dwelling one sizzling summer time night time when Obama and his sister stopped by on their solution to a film.

Her mother and father exchanged figuring out glances as quickly because the couple departed. “Too unhealthy,” Mrs. Robinson mentioned. “Yep,” answered Fraser Robinson. “She’ll eat him alive.”

Craig Robinson wrote that his mom gave the connection six months. Barack and Michelle Obama tied the knot on Oct. 3, 1992 and have been married for 31 years.

Marian Lois Shields Robinson was born in Chicago on July 30, 1937. She attended two years of educating faculty, married in 1960 and, as a stay-at-home mother, harassed the significance of training to her kids. Each had been educated at Ivy League colleges, every with a bachelor’s diploma from Princeton. Michelle Obama additionally has a legislation diploma from Harvard.

Fraser Robinson was a pump operator for the Chicago Water Division. He had a number of sclerosis and died in 1991.

Moreover the Obama household, Mrs. Robinson is survived by her son, Craig, his spouse, Kelly, and their kids Avery, Austin, Aaron and Leslie.