Today I finished the novel Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate. It is a heart-touching, fast-paced read, grounded in horrific and dark times in US history.
Before We Were Yours is about the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, run by Georgia Tann from the 1920s to 1950. Georgia Tann is a historical character, who is known today for notoriously changing the culture of child adoption. As illustrated in the novel, Tann was a well respected woman for her work in saving children and pairing them to good families and acknowledged by celebrities and even supported by politicians. What the nation failed to realize soon enough was that the orphans at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society were stolen by Tann from poor families to be sold to the rich.
Tann stole the children and babies in the cruelest and most dishonest way. She was viewed for having “saved” children. The world thought she was very kind and her deed was exceptionally kind hearted. She was even given awards for her charitable deeds in helping children find new homes. However, she blackmailed families. In Before We Were Yours, Wingate tells how Georgia had inner connections in hospitals and with government officials. When children were born, nurses at hospitals would report to the mothers that the babies were stillborn, and these babies would be transferred under Tann’s care. Tann would have mothers sign papers, saying she would arrange a special funeral for the babies, when in reality, she was going to kidnap them to sell.
Throughout a span of 30 years, Georgia Tann kidnapped around 5000 children (NY Post), and it is estimated that around 500 died. If children were not sold soon enough, they would be locked in the house and left to starve. Tann was caught in 1950, when a female social worker noticed how the infant mortality rate in Tennessee was the highest in the entire US, despite all the great work Tann was doing. Tann could only help children in the state of Tennessee, so the infant numbers didn’t add up. The social worker requested an investigation be conducted. The nation was shocked by the results, and to this day, many families are still separated by Tann’s ruthless business. Georgia Tann died of cancer three days before the results of the investigation were released to the public, and as a result, no one was ever punished for the crimes.
I myself am so shocked by these events. As I was reading the novel, I couldn’t stop asking myself, how is this even possible? And how could it have gone on for so long? Did no one really know? Families that were perfectly well were forever torn apart. Children were starved to death. What’s more, Georgia Tann’s greed is unbelievable, as portrayed in the novel. One scene that stood out to me, was when one a family adopted a child, she went back and threatened that the child was being requested by a close relative and high fees would have to be repaid in order to keep the child. Additional fees on top of high adoption fees. In addition, Tann also lied about the children’s history, such as making up stories about their birth parent’s education and careers. Throughout the entire read, I felt like these children weren’t even being treated as humans. Rather, objects whose worth could be determined by hair color, eye color and overall appearance.
Although Before We Were Yours tells of a historical event that occured 60 years ago in US history, the story itself and the characters are fictional. Lisa Wingate writes of two families: the river gypsies and a US Senator’s family, the Staffords. She crafts a brilliant story illustrating how the Tennessee Children’s Home Society connected these two families who seemingly come from total opposite ends of the world in a clever back-to-back narration between the past and the present.
A riveting piece that will grip one’s kindness and heart from the first page to the last.
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