📍7436 South Euclid Avenue, South Shore, Chicago, IL 60649, USA
1964 – 1981“Michelle Robinson grew up on the upper floor of her great-aunt's brick bungalow at 7436 South Euclid Avenue in South Shore, on Chicago's South Side. Her family rented the small one-bedroom flat upstairs, with the living room divided to make bedrooms for Michelle and her older brother, Craig. Downstairs lived her great-aunt Robbie, a strict and devoted piano teacher, and Michelle began lessons with her at about four, practising on a worn piano with a chipped key that marked middle C. Her father, Fraser, worked at the city's water plant and was a Democratic precinct captain; he had multiple sclerosis, and Michelle watched him go to work every day despite growing difficulty walking. Her mother, Marian, ran the home and later went back to work, and the family placed great value on education, honesty and humour. As a girl she saw South Shore change around her as white families moved away, and she later spoke of how neighbourhoods are shaped by who leaves and who stays. She attended Bryn Mawr Elementary nearby, skipped the second grade and then commuted across the city to Whitney Young Magnet High School, travelling an hour or more each way by bus and train. She went on to Princeton and Harvard Law School before returning to Chicago, where she met Barack Obama. In her memoir Becoming, she wrote that the lessons of Euclid Avenue, about hard work, love and asking whether she was good enough, stayed with her through the White House. Her mother came to live in the White House with them, carrying the family's South Side spirit with her.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today