Johnson's family background encouraged achievement and cultural pursuits. His father, James Johnson, was a self-educated man who, as a waiter in New York and a headwaiter in Nassau and then in Jacksonville, Florida, achieved economic security and adopted middle-class values. While in New York he met and courted Helen Louise Dillet, a young woman of African-French-English ancestry, a native of Nassau who had grown up in New York, received a good education, and developed her musical talent. When Dillet returned with her mother to her native island in 1861, James Johnson followed her and secured a position in a large hotel. They were married in 1864 and prospered initially, but an economic recession forced the couple and their infant daughter to move to Jacksonville, a rapidly expanding city becoming an important tourist center. Here were born James William (changed in 1913 to Weldon) Johnson and, two years later, John Rosamond Johnson.
Growing up in an increasingly secure middle-class home with books and a piano, young James was inculcated with strict notions of integrity by his father and with intellectual and artistic interests by his mother. The first black woman public school teacher in Florida, Helen Johnson encouraged a love of learning in her sons, whom she taught at home before they attained school age and again in the classroom at Stanton School.
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