Obama family matriarch
NAIROBI, KENYA
Sarah Obama, the matriarch of former U.S. President Barack Obama’s Kenyan family has died, relatives and officials confirmed Monday. She was at least 99 years old.
Mama Sarah, as the stepgrandmother of the former U.S. president was fondly called, promoted education for girls and orphans in her rural Kogelo village. She passed away around 4 a.m. local time while being treated at the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral hospital in Kisumu, in the country’s west, according to her daughter Marsat Onyango.
“She died this morning. We are devastated,” Onyango told The Associated Press on a phone call.
“Mama was sick with normal diseases. She did not die of COVID-19,” a family spokesman, Sheik
Musa Ismail said, adding that she had tested negative for the disease. He said she had been ill for a week before being taken to the hospital.
President Barack Obama posted on Twitter a photo of him and his grandmother and wrote: “My family and I are mourning the loss of our beloved grandmother, Sarah Ogwel Onyango Obama, affectionately known to many as ‘Mama Sarah’ but known to us as ‘Dani’ or Granny. We will miss her dearly, but we’ll celebrate with gratitude her long and remarkable life.”
She will be buried Tuesday.
“The passing away of
Mama Sarah is a big blow to our nation. We’ve lost a strong, virtuous woman, a matriarch who held together the Obama family and was an icon of family values,” President Uhuru Kenyatta said.
She will be remembered for her work to promote education to empower orphans, Kisumu Governor Anyang Nyong;o said while offering his condolences to the people of Kogelo village for losing a matriarch.
“She was a philanthropist who mobilized funds to pay school fees for the orphans,” he said.
Sarah Obama, was the second wife of President Obama’s grandfather and helped raise his father, Barack Obama Sr.
President Obama referred to her as “Granny” in his memoir, “Dreams from My Father.” He described meeting her during his 1988 trip to his father’s homeland and their initial awkwardness as they struggled to communicate, butthey developed a warm bond. She attended his first inauguration as president in 2009.
For decades, Sarah Obama helped orphans, raising some in her home. The Mama Sara Obama Foundation helped provide food, education, school supplies, uniforms, basic medical needs, and school fees for children who lost their parents.
In a 2014 interview with AP, she said she made sure that her family’s children went to school.
She recalled pedaling the president’s father six miles to school on the back of her bicycle.