Chicago is a big metropolitan area, so it’s not surprising to learn that many famous, accomplished people spent their childhoods here. First Lady Michelle Robinson Obama grew up at 7436 S. Euclid Ave. in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood (photos below). She and her family (mother, father, and brother Craig) rented the second floor apartment of a sturdy brick bungalow owned by her mother's Aunt Robbie, who taught piano lessons with exacting authority on the first floor. “The music was never annoying, just persistent,” says Obama charitably in her well-written and fascinating 2018 autobiography, Becoming. When she was four, she began learning to play the piano from Aunt Robbie. “It felt natural, like something I was meant to do,” she says.
“I loved my room,” writes Obama. “It was just big enough for a twin bed and a narrow desk. I kept all my stuffed animals on the bed, painstakingly tucking them around my head each night as a form of ritual comfort.” A thin partition separating her space from her brother Craig’s “was so flimsy that we could talk as we lay in bed at night, often tossing a balled sock back and forth through the ten inch gap between the partition and the ceiling as we did.” They sprayed Pledge on the hall floor to make it as slippery as possible when they slid on it in their socks. The siblings had received boxing gloves from their father, and enjoyed practice matches in the kitchen. At night the family played board games, told jokes and stories, and listened to Jackson 5 records.
Downstairs seemed “like a mausoleum” in comparison. Aunt Robbie kept the furniture covered in plastic, and her shelves were loaded with porcelain figurines the kids were not allowed to touch. Obama came to think of upstairs and downstairs as “two separate universes, ruled over by competing sensibilities.”
When you think of your childhood home, do you also remember another dwelling, maybe a friend’s, or a grandparent’s, that offered subtle or even extreme contrasts? Did this other place affect the way you felt about where you were living? If so, an exploration of the differences could provide a good approach to your childhood home story.
We would love to have your story, and would be glad to offer gentle writing help if you’d like it. Email it to us at the blog, childhoodhomestories@gmail.com. We can also interview you, ask you questions, and create your story from a transcription, if that is better for you. Just let us know and we’ll schedule a time at your convenience.
Wishing you inspiration and a great holiday season!
Laurie and Susan