Lolo Soetoro

Lolo Soetoro was an Indonesian geologist and army colonel who is best known as the stepfather of Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States. He was born in Bandung, West Java, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) in 1935. He lost his father and eldest brother during the Indonesian National Revolution, when the Dutch army burned down their house. He graduated from Gadjah Mada University with a bachelor's degree in geography and worked as a civilian employee of the Indonesian Army Topographic Service. In 1962, he received a scholarship to study geography at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where he met and married Ann Dunham, a single mother of a six-year-old boy named Barack Obama. He returned to Indonesia in 1965 and served as a colonel in the Indonesian armed forces under General Suharto, the second President of Indonesia. He also worked in government relations at Union Oil Company. He and Dunham had a daughter, Maya Soetoro-Ng, in 1970. They divorced in 1980 and he remarried Erna Kustina, with whom he had two more children, Yusuf and Rahayu. He died of liver failure in Jakarta in 1987 at the age of 52. He was a well-mannered, even-tempered, and easygoing man who taught Obama how to play chess and tennis, and how to box to defend himself. He also exposed him to the diverse cultures and religions of Indonesia, which influenced Obama's worldview and identity. He was a moderate Muslim who rarely practiced his faith, but respected other beliefs. He was proud of his stepson's achievements and hoped that he would visit Indonesia someday.