Lolo Soetoro Explained

Lolo Soetoro
Birth Date:2 January 1935
Birth Place:Bandung, West Java, Dutch East Indies
Death Place:Jakarta, Indonesia
Spouse:
    Children:4, including Maya Soetoro-Ng

    Lolo Soetoro (EYD: Lolo Sutoro; in Javanese pronounced as /ˈlɒlɒ suːˈtɒrɒː/; 2 January 1935[1] – 2 March 1987), also known as Lolo Soetoro Mangunharjo[2] [3] or Mangundikardjo,[4] was an Indonesian geographer who was the ex-stepfather of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States.[5]

    Early life and education

    Soetoro was born on 2 January 1935 in Bandung, West Java, as the ninth of ten children of Soewarno Martodihardjo (1897–1951), an employee of a mining office from Yogyakarta, and Djoeminah (born 1900).[6] His brothers were Supoyo (1919–1955), Supomo (born 1921), Sugiyo (born 1925), Bambang Sugito (born 1927), and Soemitro Soetoro (born 1933), and his sisters were Cuk Muhsidi (born 1923), Titik Imam Sutiknyo (born 1929), Soewardinah (born 1931), and Uki Gunowiyono Soetoro.[7] As of 2010, all of his siblings already passed away. Soetoro earned his bachelor's degree in geography from Gadjah Mada University, in Yogyakarta.[1] In 1962, Soetoro, then a civilian employee of the Indonesian Army Topographic Service, obtained an East–West Center grant for graduate study in geography at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.[8] He arrived in Honolulu in September 1962 and graduated from the university with a M.A. in geography in June 1964.[9]

    Marriage to Ann Dunham

    Soetoro met the divorced Ann Dunham at the East-West Center while both were students at the University of Hawaii,[10] [11] [12] and married on 15 March 1965.[12] [13] Soetoro, a geographer,[12] [14] returned to Indonesia in 1966[15] to help map Western New Guinea[16] for the Indonesian government, while Dunham and her son Barack Obama moved into her parents' house in Honolulu to complete her studies.[17] [18]

    Dunham and her six-year-old son joined Soetoro in Jakarta in 1967.[19] The family initially lived for two and a half years in a modest stucco and red tile house in a newly built neighborhood in Menteng Dalam village in South Jakarta[19] [20] [21] and owned a new Japanese motorcycle.[22] Dunham worked as assistant director of the Indonesia-America Friendship Institute[23] while Obama attended the Indonesian-language Santo Fransiskus Asisi (St. Francis of Assisi) Catholic School.[19] [20] [21]

    In 1970, with a new job in government relations[24] at Union Oil Company,[1] [16] [12] Soetoro moved his family two miles north to a rented house,[19] [21] with a car replacing their motorcycle.[25] Dunham was a department head and a director of the Lembaga Pendidikan dan Pengembangan Manajemen (LPPM)–the Institute of Management Education and Development.[23] Obama attended the Indonesian-language Besuki School.[19] [20] [21]

    On 15 August 1970, Soetoro and Dunham had a daughter, Maya Kasandra Soetoro.[26] [27]

    In mid-1971, Obama moved back to Hawaii to attend Punahou School.[28] In August 1972, Dunham rejoined Obama with her daughter and began graduate study at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.[23] [29] She gained an M.A. in anthropology in December 1974[18] and returned with her daughter to Jakarta in 1975[23] [29] while Obama remained in Hawaii.[30] In 1976, Dunham and her daughter lived for half a year with Soetoro's 76-year-old mother.[29]

    Dunham became increasingly interested in Indonesian culture while Soetoro became more interested in that of the West,[10] and their relationship was in conflict over differing values.[31] They divorced on 6 November 1980.[10]

    In his 1995 memoir Dreams from My Father, Obama described Soetoro as well-mannered, even-tempered, and easy with people; he wrote of the struggles he felt Soetoro had to deal with after his return to Indonesia from Hawaii.[32] He described his stepfather as following "a brand of Islam that could make room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths."[33] [34] In a 2007 article, Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent Kim Barker reported that Soetoro "was much more of a free spirit than a devout Muslim, according to former friends and neighbors."[19]

    Later life

    Soetoro married Erna Kustina in 1980 and had two children, son Bayu Yusuf Aji Soetoro (born 1981), and daughter Rahayu Nurmaida Soetoro (born 1984).[35] He also had an adoptive daughter, Holiah Soetoro (1957–2010).[36]

    Soetoro died at Pertamina Central Hospital in Jakarta, Indonesia, on 2 March 1987 (some source reported the year as 1993), due to liver failure and secondary to unreported causes at the time of this note, at the age of 52 and was buried at Tanah Kusir Cemetery.[37]

    References

    Notes and References

    1. News: Habib, Ridlawn . 2008-11-05 . Kalau ke Jogja, Barry bisa habiskan seekor ayam baceman . If traveling to Yogyakrta, Barry can eat one whole chicken . id . . Surabya . 2008-11-10. Google Translate's English translation Lolo studied geography at Gadjah Mada University and got a scholarship from the Indonesian Army Topographic Service. After working for the Indonesian Army Topographic Service, he worked for an American oil company, Unocal [Union Oil Company].
    2. News: Asydhad, Arifin . 2006-07-06 . Jejak Barack Obama: suka pramuka, sering bagi cokelat (Barack Obama impression: scouts like, frequently for chocolate) . Jakarta . detikNews.com (a web portal founded in 1998 by Abdul Rahman and Budiono Darsono as part of PT Agranet Multicitra Siberkom (PT Agrakom)—an Internet startup company founded in 1995) . id . 2008-11-11. Google Translate's English translation
    3. Web site: 2008 . Lolo Soetoro Mangunharjo . GeneAll.world . Lisbon . GeneAll.net . 2008-06-19.
    4. Web site: Oraw, Nirina (citizen journalist) . 2007-01-25 . Barry Soetoro calon Presiden AS (U.S. Presidential candidate Barry Obama) . Alphen aan den Rijn, The Netherlands . Yayasan Peduli Indonesia (Care Foundation Indonesia) . . id . 2008-11-11 . Toshihiko Atsuyama's (Foreign Prophecies blog) English translation
    5. News: Nathalia, Telly . 2008-06-05 . Indonesians reflect with pride on Obama nomination . Reuters.com . 2008-06-17.
    6. News: Shambazy . Budiarto . 2009-01-24 . Reuni Keluarga Obama di Tilden Street . 2024-11-01 . Kompas . id.
    7. Web site: 2010-03-17 . Keluarga Ayah Tiri Obama Dijadwalkan Bertemu dalam Makan Malam . 2024-11-01 . Detik News . id.
    8. Web site: 2009-09-11 . For the record: President Obama's East-West Center connections . East-West Center Press Kit . Honolulu . . 2011-02-06 . Obama's stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, was an East–West Center graduate degree fellow (M.A. in geography) from 1962–64, before he married Obama's mother..
    9. Web site: Wester, Lyndon . 2010-10-13 . History of the Department . Honolulu . University of Hawaii Department of Geography . 2011-02-06.
    10. News: Ripley, Amanda . 2008-04-09 . The story of Barack Obama's mother . . https://web.archive.org/web/20080412021959/http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1729524,00.html . dead . 12 April 2008 . 2011-01-13.
    11. News: Solomon, Deborah . 2008-01-20 . Questions for Maya Soetoro-Ng: All in the family . The New York Times Magazine . 17 . 2011-01-13.
    12. News: Nakaso, Dan . 2008-09-12 . Obama's mother's work focus of UH seminar . The Honolulu Advertiser . 2011-02-06.
      At UH, she fell in love with a Javanese candidate for a master's degree in geography named Soetoro Martodihardjo, who went by the Javanese nickname, "Lolo" Soetoro. They married in 1965 ...
      The Dutch had ceded Western New Guinea to Indonesia, and geographer Lolo Soetoro returned to map the new divide between Eastern Guinea, which was under British/Australian control, and the Western portion.
      In the early 1970s … "He got a job with Union Oil," [Alice G.] Dewey said. "Lolo joked that they got divorced because she was falling in love with Javanese handcrafts and he was becoming an American oil man, which wasn't far from the truth.
    13. Date of marriage from Stanley Ann's application to amend her US passport, 6/29/1967.
    14. Obama (1995, 2004), p. 43: He was working for the army as a geologist [sic], surveying roads and tunnels, when she arrived. It was mind-numbing work that didn't pay very much …
    15. News: Scott, Janny . 2008-03-14 . A free-spirited wanderer who set Obama's path . The New York Times . A1 . he was summoned home in 1966 … . 2011-04-20.
    16. News: Maraniss, David . 2008-08-22 . Though Obama had to leave to find himself, it is Hawaii that made his rise possible . washingtonpost.com . Lolo was off working for Union Oil … He had been summoned back to his country from Hawaii in 1966 and sent to work in New Guinea for a year … . 2011-01-13.
      News: 1962-06-20 . Kenyan student wins fellowship . Honolulu Star-Bulletin . 7.
      News: Griffin, John . 1962-06-22 . First UH African graduate gives view on E-W Center . The Honolulu Advertiser . B?.
    17. News: Hoover, Will . 2008-11-08 . Obama slept here . The Honolulu Advertiser . A1 . 2011-01-13.
      News: Dingeman, Robbie . 2008-12-03 . Obama childhood locales attracting more tourists . The Honolulu Advertiser . A1 . 2011-01-13.
    18. News: Essoyan, Susan . 2008-09-13 . A woman of the people; a symposium recalls the efforts of Stanley Ann Dunham to aid the poor . Honolulu Star-Bulletin . Dunham earned her bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Hawaii. . 2011-04-20 .
      Dewey, Alice . White, Geoffrey . November 2008 . Ann Dunham: a personal reflection . Anthropology News . 49 . 8 . 20 . 10.1111/an.2008.49.8.20. reprinted by:
      Web site: Dewey, Alice . White, Geoffrey . 2009-03-09 . Ann Dunham: a personal reflection . Honolulu . University of Hawaii Department of Anthropology . 2011-01-13 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20100610025012/http://www.anthropology.hawaii.edu/News/Announcements/Dunham/dunham.html . 10 June 2010 .
      Dunham (2009), p. 376: "S. Ann Dunham (1942–95), mother of President Barack Obama and Maya Soetoro-ng, earned her undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees, all in anthropology, from the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa."
    19. News: Barker, Kim . 2007-03-25 . History of schooling distorted . Chicago Tribune . 28 . 2009-07-26.
      Obama and his mother moved from Honolulu to Jakarta to join Soetoro in 1967, when Obama was 6.
      In their first neighborhood ... Soetoro usually was too busy working, first for the Indonesian army and later for a Western oil company.
      Zulfan Adi, a former neighborhood playmate of Obama's who has been cited in news reports as saying Obama regularly attended Friday prayers with Soetoro, told the Tribune he was not certain about that when pressed about his recollections. He only knew Obama for a few months, during 1970, when his family moved to the neighborhood.
      In late 1970, Obama's family moved to another neighborhood, and Obama enrolled in Public Elementary School Menteng No. 1 ...
    20. News: Watson, Paul . 2007-03-15 . As a child, Obama crossed a cultural divide in Indonesia . Los Angeles Times . A1 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080607224412/http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-obamachildhood15-2007mar15,0,673981,full.story . dead . 2008-06-07 . Soetoro worked for Mobil Oil ... Adi said. . 2008-06-21.
    21. News: Anderton, Trish . 2007-06-26 . Obama's Jakarta trail . . 2008-06-12 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080612023326/http://old.thejakartapost.com/weekender/6reporter.asp . 2008-06-19.
      News: Nazeer, Zubaidah . Samon, Mohd Ishak . 2009-01-27 . Where Obama won a keropok eating contest . . Singapore . . he joined ... Besuki SDN Menteng, where Mr Effendi taught, in 1970. Barry came into his class a month late, in February 1970 because he had transferred from the Catholic elementary school St Francis Assisi. . 2011-04-20.
      News: Higgins, Andrew . 2010-04-09 . Catholic school in Indonesia seeks recognition for its role in Obama's life . A1 . The Washington Post . 2011-01-01.
      News: Onishi, Norimitsu . 2010-11-09 . Obama visits a nation that knew him as Barry . The New York Times . A14 . 2011-01-01.
    22. Obama (1995, 2004), p. 32.
      Maraniss (2012), pp. 230, 240.
    23. Book: Dunham, S. Ann . 2008 . Pendekar-pendekar besi Nusantara: kajian antropologi tentang pandai besi tradisional di Indonesia (Peasant blacksmithing in Indonesia: surviving and thriving against all odds) . Bandung . Mizan . 978-979-433-534-5 . Tentang penulis (About the author) . 211–219.
    24. News: Sheridan, Michael . Baxter, Sarah . 2007-01-28 . Secrets of Obama family unlocked . . London . 25 . Soetoro became a government relations consultant with a big US oil company. . 2009-08-27 . reprinted on 2007-02-01 by The Muslim Observer
    25. Obama (1995, 2004). p. 46.
    26. News: Fornek, Scott . Good, Greg . 2007-09-09 . The Obama family tree . Chicago Sun-Times . 2B . 2008-06-25 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080625113616/http://www.suntimes.com/images/cds/MP3/obamatree.pdf . 2008-06-21.
    27. News: Jones, Bart . Lefkowitz, Melanie . Henderson, Nia-Malika . Evans, Martin C. . 2008-11-08 . Timeline: Obama through the years . . Melville, N.Y. . 2008-11-09.
    28. Obama (1995, 2004). pp. 58–59.
      Maraniss (2012), pp. 264–266.
    29. Dunham (2009), pp. xli–xliv: "January 8, 1976 letter from Ann Dunham Soetoro (Jl. Polowijan 3, Kraton, Yogyakarta) to Prof. Alice G. Dewey (Univ. of Hawaii, Honolulu)."
    30. Book: Mendell, David . 2007 . . New York . Amistad/HarperCollins . 43 . 978-0-06-085820-9 .
    31. Obama (1998, 2004), pp. 44–47.
      Maraniss (2012), pp. 242–243.
    32. Obama (1995, 2004), pp. 30–31.
    33. News: Fornek, Scott . 2007-09-09 . Lolo Soetoro; 'A piece of tiger meat' . 2008-06-17 . Chicago Sun-Times.
    34. Obama (1995, 2004), p. 37.
    35. News: 2009-01-22 . Mbak Non, Obama, dan Keluarga Soetoro . 2024-11-01 . Kompas . id.
    36. Web site: 2010-02-26 . Suryanto . Kakak Angkat Barack Obama Meninggal . 2024-11-01 . Antara News . id.
    37. Web site: 2006-07-14 . Daster Batik Tante Anne . 2024-11-01 . Detik News . id.

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