“When Robinson left Chicago for Washington, she told an interviewer, “They’re dragging me with them, and I’m not that comfortable, but I’m doing exactly what you do. You do what has to be done.”

Five years in, Robinson seems to have settled into life in the White House, where she sometimes spends afternoons reading in a great hall that serves as the family’s living room on the second-floor residence. Her children have said she has built a busy social life, but she still remains a go-to person for ensuring her granddaughters, who’ve grown up as household names, maintain some normalcy.”

“Marian Shields Robinson moved into the White House in 2009 after a lifetime in Chicago, where she was raised by a painter and a stay-at-home mother in a small house with seven siblings on the South Side. She married and became a stay-at-home mom herself, raising two Ivy League graduates. Before retiring to help care for her granddaughters, she worked as a bank secretary and took yoga classes.

When her daughter asked her to move from her Chicago walk-up to the museum that is the White House, Robinson agreed, recognizing the enormous transition the family faced at the time.

Still, Robinson drew lines between herself and what she called “Michelle’s family.” She considered taking an apartment in Washington but ultimately moved into a room with a four-poster bed and sitting area on the third floor of the White House. The rest of the first family lives on the second floor.”