Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

Based on the real life scandal at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, Lisa Wingate’s heartbreaking novel is told from two different points of view. First we learn the traumatic story of the five Foss siblings who are taken from their shanty boat on the Mississippi River in 1939 and placed in the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis. The children’s mother and father leave to go to the hospital where their mother gives birth. Illiterate and under sedation, their mom unknowingly signs paperwork relinquishing her beloved children to the state. 

When the Foss siblings first arrive at the orphanage in shock, the oldest Rill assures them that their parents’ will arrive soon to retrieve them. Yet it soon becomes clear that they are in a nightmare from which they cannot escape. Rill does everything she can to protect her younger siblings but soon her youngest brother Gabion is adopted and the four siblings never see him again. The tragedies continue to mount. The Foss siblings learn that they are all viewed as poor river rats. In time, Georgia Tann changes the children’s names and invents for each of them an impressive pedigree. It is hard to read about children being treated as nonhuman commodities by cruel adults who convince themselves that children are better off with wealthy parents than poor parents. 

The other perspective of the story takes place in the present and follows Avery Stafford, a granddaughter of one of the Foss siblings. While Rill Foss’ story moves forward, Avery looks to the past to discover the hidden history of an elderly woman who is mysteriously connected to Avery’s grandmother.   

Wingate captures the horror perpetuated by Georgia Tann and her enablers. Between 1939-1950, thousands of children were placed in Tann’s orphanages. Most of the children were neglected, abused, and traumatized by being ripped from their birth families. In 1951, there was a newspaper article  “Adoption Matron May Have Been Most Prolific Serial Killer.” This horror show happened due to the greed and prejudice of George Tann and those she paid off. Even when the public became aware that children were stolen and treated cruelly, the Tennessee courts sealed the adoption records until 1995! Too many people must have been complicit and/or benefitted from one of Georgia Tann’s adoptions. 

Though the present day part of the story is not as strong, it is a relief from the abuse. Avery Stafford does succeed in discovering her grandmother’s hidden past and connecting these two elderly Foss women. Though these women have lived happy and privileged lives far away from the river, their traumatic early years still dominate their emotional lives. The memories of their forced adoptions reside close to the surface. How could they not? 

Though I wish Wingate had explored Georgia Tann’s early life and motivations for her disturbed view of the world, I believe her novel tells an important story of greed, collusion, and the systemic oppression of poor people. By creating characters with whom we can empathize, Wingate makes real the horrible events that occurred. She is both illuminating a sad story from the past and reminding her readers that powerful people can and will collude to advance their own immoral interests at the expense of those less powerful. Before We Were Yours is not an easy read and yet by the end of the book I felt buoyed by the resilience of the human sprit.