- Author, Bernd Debusmann Jr
- Role, BBC News, Washington
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Marian Robinson, the mom of former US First Lady Michelle Obama, has died at 86.
In a press release, her household mentioned that Robinson had died “peacefully” on Friday morning.
Robinson was a well known fixture at the White House in the course of the eight years of Barack Obama’s administration between 2009-17.
She spent a lot of that point taking good care of her two granddaughters, Malia and Sasha, daughters to Michelle and Barack Obama.
In a press release posted on X, previously Twitter, Mrs Obama referred to as her mom 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.
Image supply, Getty Images
In a separate tweet, Mr Obama mentioned 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 additional particulars got about the reason for dying.
Born in 1937, Robinson grew up certainly one of seven youngsters in Chicago, the town the place she spent a lot of her life earlier than agreeing to come back to Washington DC after Mr Obama’s electoral victory.
Early in her life, she studied to develop into a trainer earlier than working as a secretary. She raised Michelle and her different little one, Craig, collectively along 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 assertion mentioned.
“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 picture taken on the night time in 2008 when her son-in-law made historical past because the nation’s first African-American president confirmed Robinson sitting on a settee with him, watching the outcomes are available.
Image supply, Getty Images
The assertion added that Robinson had agreed to maneuver to the White House after a “healthy nudge” from Barack and Michelle Obama, who, together with their daughters, “needed her”.
She later spoke of how she insisted on doing her personal laundry there.
In an interview with CBS, the BBC’s US accomplice, Robinson mentioned she had felt compelled to maneuver to Washington as a result of 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 by no means boarded a flight out of the US till she flew aboard Air Force One with the Obamas to France in 2009.
Robinson – whom Mr Obama as soon as referred to as “the least pretentious person” he knew – mentioned that it was a “huge adjustment” to have her wants met by White House workers.
“Rather than hobnobbing with Oscar winners or Nobel laureates, she most popular spending her time upstairs with a TV tray, within the room outdoors her bed room with massive home windows that regarded out at the Washington Monument,” the household assertion mentioned.
“The solely visitor she made some extent of asking to fulfill was the Pope,” it added.
Her privateness afforded her a freedom envied by the remainder of her household. David Axelrod, a senior Obama advisor, informed CNN on Friday “she would usually slip out of the White House on her personal and go to with buddies”.
“She actually wasn’t in search of consideration,” he added.
On Mother’s Day – simply weeks earlier than Robinson’s dying – Mrs Obama introduced that an exhibit at the Obama Presidential Center Museum in Chicago can be named in her honour.
“In so some ways, she fostered in me a deep sense of confidence in who I used to be and who I could possibly be, by educating me to suppose for myself,” Mrs Obama mentioned in a video announcement.
“I merely would not be who I’m immediately with out my mother.”
