\n
Marian Robinson, the mother of former US First Lady Michelle Obama, has died at 86.<\/p>\n
In a statement, her family said that Robinson had died \u201cpeacefully\u201d on Friday morning.
Robinson was a well-known fixture at the White House during the eight years of Barack Obama\u2019s administration between 2009-17.<\/p>\n
She spent much of that time taking care of her two granddaughters, Malia and Sasha, daughters to Michelle and Barack Obama.
In a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter, Mrs Obama called her mother her \u201crock, always there for whatever I needed\u201d.
\u201cShe was the same steady backstop for our entire family, and we are heartbroken to share she passed away today,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n
In a separate tweet, Mr Obama said that \u201cthere was and will be only one Marian Robinson\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our sadness, we are lifted up by the extraordinary gift of her life,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd we will spend the rest of ours trying to live up to her example.\u201d<\/p>\n
No further details were given about the cause of death.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s electoral victory.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s South Side.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt every step, as our families went down paths none of us could have predicted, she remained our refuge from the storm,\u201d the Obama statement said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Election Night in 2008, when the news broke that Barack would soon shoulder the weight of the world, she was there, holding his hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
An image taken on the night in 2008 when her son-in-law made history as the nation\u2019s first African-American president showed Robinson sitting on a sofa with him, watching the results come in.<\/p>\n
The statement added that Robinson had agreed to move to the White House after a \u201chealthy nudge\u201d from Barack and Michelle Obama, who, along with their daughters, \u201cneeded her\u201d.<\/p>\n
She later spoke of how she insisted on doing her own laundry there.<\/p>\n
In an interview with CBS, the BBC\u2019s US partner, Robinson said she had felt compelled to move to Washington because she felt \u201clike this was going to be a very hard life\u201d for her daughter and son-in-law.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I was worried about their safety,\u201d she added. \u201cI was worried about my grandkids. That\u2019s what got me to move to DC.\u201d
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.<\/p>\n
Robinson \u2013 whom Mr Obama once called \u201cthe least pretentious person\u201d he knew \u2013 said that it was a \u201chuge adjustment\u201d to have her needs met by White House staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cRather 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,\u201d the family statement said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only guest she made a point of asking to meet was the Pope,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
Her privacy afforded her a freedom envied by the rest of her family. David Axelrod, a senior Obama advisor, told CNN on Friday \u201cshe would often slip out of the White House on her own and visit with friends\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe really wasn\u2019t looking for attention,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
On Mother\u2019s Day \u2013 just weeks before Robinson\u2019s death \u2013 Mrs Obama announced that an exhibit at the Obama Presidential Center Museum in Chicago would be named in her honour.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 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,\u201d Mrs Obama said in a video announcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI simply wouldn\u2019t be who I am today without my mom.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Marian Robinson, the mother of former US First Lady Michelle Obama, has died at 86. In a statement, her family said that Robinson had died \u201cpeacefully\u201d on Friday morning.Robinson was a well-known fixture at the White House during the eight years of Barack Obama\u2019s administration between 2009-17. She spent much of that time taking care […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":185572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local-news"],"yoast_head":"\n
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