Former President Barack Obama dedicated the Ann Dunham Water Garden to his mother, who died in 1995.
Barack Obama is honoring his mother, Ann Dunham, with a new addition to the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago in honor of his 61st birthday.
The 44th president said on Thursday that the water garden at the Obama Presidential Center, which will be placed near the center’s north entrance garden, will be named after his mother.
The water garden “will serve as a designated place on campus meant for reflection and relaxation,” with an art installation called “Seeing Through the Universe” by Maya Lin, the artist who created the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., that promises an oculus that creates mist and a flat “pebble” piece that will fill with water.
“As we were thinking about how to remember my mother’s influence on my sister and me, I thought about where she would want to be in this space,” Obama said in a statement. “I imagined her sitting on one of the benches on a wonderful summer afternoon, laughing and watching a group of kids jump around the fountain, and I thought that would express who she was better than anything else.”
Lin, 62, also designed the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, and is said to be one of Obama’s particular favorite artists. During his final months in office, Obama bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Lin, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
According to the statement, the Ann Dunham Water Garden will be supported by contributions from the Obama administration and alumni from the former president’s two presidential campaigns.
“This contribution means so much to us because it comes from the team that helped President Obama achieve the White House and serve the American people,” Obama Foundation CEO Valerie Jarrett said in a statement.
“President Obama’s mother was an inspiration to him, exemplifying enthusiasm, curiosity, and a commitment to service,” according to the statement. “We hope that the Ann Dunham Water Garden and the Obama Presidential Center inspire the same attributes in our visitors that the Ann Dunham Water Garden did.”
“Ann Dunham was the most influential person in President Obama’s life,” Jarrett wrote on the Obama Foundation’s website on Thursday. “She was a firm believer in the power of human connection and the inherent dignity in all of us, ideals she imparted in her children. Decades later, a devotion to those same ideals inspired millions of Americans to join a movement that propelled President Obama to the presidency.
The Obama Presidential Center is scheduled to open in 2025 and is expected to attract more than 700,000 tourists each year to Chicago’s South Side, where Obama grew up.
According to the Stanley Ann Dunham Scholarship Fund website, Dunham, who was born Stanley Ann Dunham in Kansas in 1942, died of ovarian cancer in Hawaii just before her 53rd birthday in 1995.
Recognizing his birthday, Michelle Obama sent a lovely tribute Thursday to her “honey,” writing, “Living with you just keeps getting better every year. You are always a source of pride for me.”
The White House Historical Association revealed last week, ahead of Obama’s birthday, that he and Michelle will return to the White House on September 7 to present their official White House portraits, which will hang forever in the presidential mansion.
