From the Second City, An Extended First Family

Obama's Mother-in-Law, Other Chicagoans Bring Home to White House

"A bus filled with about 50 of President Obama's friends and in-laws arrived at the White House just after midnight, as Inauguration Day came to a close, for what they called a "housewarming party." The group had celebrated more than a dozen moves together over the years, usually with casual dinners in bungalows on the South Side of Chicago. This time, they wore rented tuxedos and gowns as a small army of presidential staffers ushered them past Secret Service agents and into the East Room.

Marian Robinson, Michelle Obama's mother and the family matriarch, came downstairs from her new bedroom, and the family reunited on an oak parquet floor underneath crystal chandeliers. Celebrities and political power brokers greeted them. Jazz legend Wynton Marsalis played trumpet while caterers handed out hors d'oeuvres and flutes of champagne.

About an hour into the reception, Obama returned from his whirlwind tour of 10 inaugural balls. His wife, Michelle, and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, went to bed, exhausted. But the new president called over a photographer and explained that he wanted one final memento from the historic day. He gathered his in-laws -- teachers, secretaries and retirees from a self-described middle-class black family in Chicago -- and posed with them beneath a 1797 portrait of George Washington in his velvet suit.

"I was just trying to soak it all in, and then this realization hit me," said Steve Shields, 57, Michelle Obama's uncle. "It was like, 'Okay. This is different. All of the sudden, we are the family that's, like, at the center of the universe.' "' >>>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/31/AR2009013101876.html