Robinson’s presence became synonymous with the White House after she relocated from Chicago to support her granddaughters during the Obama administration, solidifying her integral role within the presidential household.
WASHINGTON — Former First Lady Michelle Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, has died,at the age of 86.
“She passed peacefully this morning, and right now, none of us are quite sure how exactly we’ll move on without her,” the family statement said.
The family statement is from Michelle and Barack Obama; Craig Robinson and his wife, Kelly; and Marian Robinson’s grandchildren, Avery, Leslie, Malia, Sasha, Austin and Aaron.
Robinson became known to Americans as the country’s first grandmother after her son-in-law, Barack Obama, won the 2008 presidential election. She was a fixture in the White House during his eight years in office, though she kept a low profile. She attended holiday events, the occasional overseas trip and concerts in the East Room. But most often she was with her granddaughters, Sasha and Malia.
After a lifetime in Chicago, Robinson made the decision in 2009 to uproot and relocate to Washington, D.C. Her move to the White House residence was driven by her commitment to care for her granddaughters, who were aged seven and 10 at the time, marking a significant change in her life’s trajectory.
In their statement Friday, Robinson’s family members said she agreed to leave Chicago with “a healthy nudge.”
“We needed her. The girls needed her. And she ended up being our rock through it all,” they said.
“She relished her role as a grandmother. … And although she enforced whatever household rules we’d set for bedtime, watching TV, or eating candy, she made clear that she sided with her ‘grandbabies’ in thinking that their parents were too darn strict,” they added.
Robinson was born in Chicago in 1937 and grew up in the city’s South Side, where she raised her daughter and son, Craig Robinson. She was married to Fraser Robinson, who died in 1991 from multiple sclerosis.
The former president once called his mother-in-law “the least pretentious person I know.” Indeed, Robinson said in the CBS interview that it was a “huge adjustment” being waited on by White House residence staff, whom she said she convinced to let her do her own laundry.
“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 said in its statement Friday. “The only guest she made a point of asking to meet was the Pope.”
Just a few weeks ago, Michelle Obama paid tribute to her mother on Mother’s Day by announcing that an exhibit at the Obama Presidential Center Museum in Chicago will be named after her.
“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 how to think for myself, how to use my own voice, and how to understand my own worth,” the former first lady said in a video announcement. “I simply wouldn’t be who I am today without my mom.”
The family statement released Friday said “there was and will be only one Marian Robinson,” adding, “In our sadness, we are lifted up by the extraordinary gift of her life. And we will spend the rest of ours trying to live up to her example.”