Marian Robinson, the mother of former first lady Michelle Obama, has died at the age of 86, her family announced Friday.
“She passed away peacefully this morning, and at this time none of us know exactly how we will move forward without her,” the statement said.
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Robinson was born in 1937 and grew up on Chicago’s South Side, one of seven children. She trained as a teacher before working as a secretary. She married Fraser Robinson, and they had two children together, Michelle and Craig Robinson. Fraser died in 1991.
When her son-in-law, former President Barack Obama, became president in 2008, the family persuaded her to leave Chicago and move into the White House.
“We needed her,” the family’s statement read Friday. ‘The girls needed her. And in the end she was our support and source of support.’
In a 2018 interview with “CBS Mornings” along with her daughter, she described the move as a “huge adjustment,” but she felt she had to do it to care for her granddaughters, Sasha and Malia Obama.
“I felt like this was going to be a very hard life for both of them, and I… was worried about their safety. And I was worried about my grandchildren,” Robinson told CBS Mornings.
However, Michelle Obama said her mother quickly became a “beloved figure” in the White House.
“She had a flow of people,” Obama said in 2018. “The butlers, the housekeepers. They all came over… Grandma’s room was like the confessional. You know, everyone went there and just unloaded, you know. And then they would leave. People still come to visit Mom in Chicago.”
After Obama’s second term, Robinson returned to Chicago, “to reconnect with old friends, exchange jokes, travel and enjoy a good glass of wine,” her family said.
In that 2018 interview, she said she didn’t miss the White House, just the people, “because they were like family to me.”
“As a mother, she was our backstop, a calm and unbiased witness to our triumphs and stumbles,” the family said Friday. “She was always there, always, welcoming us home, no matter how far we had traveled, with that deep and abiding love.”
— Jessica Kegu contributed to this report.
