She lived in Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1850s as a free woman of color. However, in order to satisfy the laws of the state, she was a nominal slave legally owned by a white friend.

Nancy had three sons (Archibald who became an attorney, Francis who became a minister and John ) by her white enslaver Henry W. Grimké, a widower. Henry was a member of a prominent, large slaveholding family in Charleston. His father and relatives were planters and active in political and social circles. Henry acknowledged his sons, although he did not manumit (free) them, or make the rest of his family aware of their existence.

She was the grandmother of Harlem Renaissance writer Angelina Weld Grimké.

Sources: The Face of Our Past: Images of Black Women from Colonial America to the Present edited by Kathleen Thompson and Hilary Mac Austin; Lift up Thy Voice: The Grimké Family's Journey from Slaveholders to Civil Rights Leaders by Mark Perry (2001)