***(not to mention raising him and enrolling him into an exclusive school after his mother died)***
I don’t disagree with your premise necessarily, but Obama was just two years shy of being elected to the Illinois State Senate when his mother died. She was 52 years old when she died, and she was 18 when she gave birth to Obama. So Grandma didn’t enroll him in an exclusive school after his mother passed; he was already an adult. Basically his mother abandoned him when he was a young boy, and his grandparents raised him in Hawaii. At least this is the story according to the LSM.
Once again, FReepers remind me and fill in the gaps of my knowledge. I forgot precisely when his mother died. But I did remember that his grandparents were responsible guardians for much of his upbringing. It seems to me, and the line he gave in Austin underscored it for me, he never quite gives them all the credit they deserve.