Pinchback opposed her marriage to Nathan Toomer, a Georgia planter, who deserted his wife after about a year. Without resources, Nina moved with her new-born child back to her father's home. The child was christened Eugene Nathan Toomer, but through much of his childhood was known by the surname Pinchback. Later in life he changed Eugene to Jean.
In "On Being an American," one of his autobiographical writings, Toomer described his racial heredity as "Scotch, Welsh, German, English, French, Dutch, Spanish, with some dark blood." His grandfather's home on Bacon Street was not in a black neighborhood, and he remembered it as free of racial prejudice. A leader among the children with whom he played, he remembered their associations generally with affection. The tensions he experienced were mainly in the home, primarily between his grandfather and his mother, and between his grandfather and himself. These tensions, he thought, were the root in December 1905 of the one serious illness of his childhood, one which brought him close to death. When he recovered, after about eight months, he felt weak and incapable of resuming his old position with his friends.
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