Family of Barack Obama - Michelle Robinson Obama's Extended Family

Michelle Robinson Obama's Extended Family

Barack Obama has called his wife Michelle "the most quintessentially American woman I know." Her family is of African-American heritage, descendants of Africans and Europeans of the colonial era. Michelle Obama's family history traces from slavery to Reconstruction to the Great Migration to northern cities, in her family's case, Chicago. Some of Michelle's relatives still reside in South Carolina.

Jim Robinson

Michelle's earliest known relative on her father's side is her great-great grandfather Jim Robinson, born in the 1850s, who was an American slave on the Friendfield plantation in Georgetown, South Carolina. The family believes that after the Civil War, he worked as a Friendfield sharecropper for the rest of his life. He is said to have been buried there in an unmarked grave.

Jim married twice, first to a woman named Louiser, with whom he had two sons, Gabriel and Fraser, Michelle Obama's great-grandfather. A daughter was born to the family, but her name has not been discovered and she is believed to have died as a child. His second marriage to Rose Ella Cohen produced six other children. Fraser had an arm amputated as a result of a boyhood injury. He worked as a shoemaker, a newspaper salesman, and in a lumber mill. Carrie Nelson, Gabriel Robinson's daughter, now 80, is the oldest living Robinson and the keeper of family lore.

At least three of Michelle Obama's great-uncles served in the military of the United States. One aunt moved to Princeton, New Jersey, where she worked as a maid, and cooked Southern-style meals for Michelle and her brother, Craig, when they were students at Princeton University.

Marian Lois Robinson

Michelle Obama's mother (birthname Marian Lois Shields, born July 30, 1937), now widowed, married Michelle's father, Fraser Robinson, on October 27, 1960. Robinson was formerly a secretary at Spiegel catalog and a bank. While Michelle and Barack Obama were campaigning in 2008, Robinson tended the Obamas' young children. She has continued to help care for them while living in the White House as part of the First Family; she is the first live-in grandmother since Elivera M. Doud during the Eisenhower administration. Some media outlets have dubbed Robinson as the "First Granny". Marian takes Sasha and Malia to school daily and enjoys life in Washington.

Fraser C. Robinson III

Michelle Obama's father, born August 1, 1935, died March 6, 1991, married Michelle's mother, Marian Shields, on October 27, 1960. Robinson was a pump worker at the City of Chicago water plant.

Craig Robinson

Michelle Obama's brother, born 1962. As of the 2012–13 season, he is head coach of men's basketball at Oregon State University.

Fraser Robinson, Jr.

Michelle Obama's grandfather was born on August 24, 1912, in Georgetown, South Carolina, and died on November 9, 1996, aged 84. He was a good student and orator but moved from South Carolina to Chicago to find better work than he could find at home, eventually becoming a worker for the United States Postal Service. He was married to LaVaughn Johnson. When he retired, they moved back to South Carolina.

LaVaughn Dolores Johnson

Michelle Obama's grandmother (February 6, 1915 – September 17, 2002) and wife of Fraser Robinson, Jr. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, to James Preston Johnson (1880–1920?) and Phoebe (1879–1920?).

Capers C. Funnye, Jr.

Michelle Obama's first cousin once removed: Funnye's mother, Verdelle Robinson Funnye (born Verdelle Robinson; August 22, 1930 – April 16, 2000) and Michelle Obama's paternal grandfather, Fraser Robinson, Jr., were siblings. One of America's most prominent African American rabbis, known for acting as a bridge between mainstream Jewry and African Americans.