Known for her White House presence, Robinson relocated from Chicago to assist with her granddaughters during the Obama administration.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, has passed away at the age of 86, as confirmed by a family statement shared with NBC News. “She passed peacefully this morning, and right now, none of us are quite sure how exactly we’ll move on without her,” the statement said.
The statement was jointly issued by Michelle and Barack Obama; Craig Robinson and his wife, Kelly; and Marian Robinson’s grandchildren, Avery, Leslie, Malia, Sasha, Austin, and Aaron. Robinson became widely recognized as the nation’s first grandmother after her son-in-law, Barack Obama, was elected president in 2008. She was a familiar presence in the White House during his eight-year tenure, though she maintained a low profile. Robinson attended holiday events, occasional overseas trips, and concerts in the East Room, but she was most often seen with her granddaughters, Sasha and Malia.
Having spent her entire life in Chicago, Robinson decided to move to Washington, D.C., in 2009 to live in the White House and assist with caring for her granddaughters, who were seven and ten at the time. “I felt like this was going to be a very hard life for both of them,” she later explained in a CBS interview, referring to her daughter and son-in-law. “And I was worried about their safety, and I was worried about my grandkids. That’s what got me to move to D.C.”
In their statement on Friday, Robinson’s family mentioned that 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 on the city’s South Side, where she raised her daughter and son, Craig Robinson. She was married to Fraser Robinson, who passed away in 1991 from multiple sclerosis.
The former president once described his mother-in-law as “the least pretentious person I know.” Robinson herself mentioned in the CBS interview that it was a “huge adjustment” being waited on by White House residence staff, whom 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 their statement on Friday. “The only guest she made a point of asking to meet was the Pope.”
The former president credited Robinson with keeping his daughters grounded while they grew up in the White House. “She’s down to Earth and she doesn’t understand all the fuss,” he said in an interview on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
Michelle Obama had a profound bond with her mother. Robinson narrated the biographical video introducing her daughter at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. After leaving the White House, Robinson remarked, “My saying is when I grow up, I would like to be like Michelle Obama.”
Just a few weeks ago, Michelle Obama honored her mother on Mother’s Day by announcing that an exhibit at the Obama Presidential Center Museum in Chicago would 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.”
