“We needed her”: Marian Robinson ran the household and looked after the Obamas’ daughters when their father Barack Obama ruled in the White House. Now she has died at the age of 86.
Former American First Lady Michelle Obama is mourning her mother. Marian Robinson died on Friday at the age of 86, as her daughter announced on the online platform X – without going into further detail about the circumstances of her death. “My mother Marian Robinson was my rock and was always there for me, whatever I needed. She was just as much of a support for the whole family and we are heartbroken that she has left us today,” wrote Michelle Obama, who moved into the White House in 2009 after her husband Barack was sworn in as the first black President of the United States, together with him, his mother-in-law and their two daughters Malia and Sasha.
Marian Lois Shields Robinson was born in Chicago in 1937 and grew up as one of seven siblings in the south of the city. In a moving family obituary, she was described as a loving and resolute mother, mother-in-law and grandmother who worked hard to gain her wisdom.
“Parents don’t raise babies. They raise little people,” was one of her campaign slogans. But she didn’t just have a heart for the little ones; she was also an important support to the man who was once the most powerful in the world. “On election night (in November) 2008, when it became clear that Barack would soon be carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, she was there and held his hand.”
During the election campaign, Marian Robinson often looked after her granddaughters, seven-year-old Sasha and ten-year-old Malia. After moving into the White House, she took care of the President and First Lady, ran the household with the help of her servants and devoted herself to caring for her two children. “We needed her. The girls needed her,” the obituary says of this time. Now she leaves behind a grieving family – “and at the moment none of us knows exactly how we are going to carry on without her.”