Before and After

Before and After: The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived The Tennessee Children's Home Society

This book is unlike any other book I've read.

For those who don't know about the Tennessee Children's Home Society (TCHS), founder Georgia Tann was essentially running a black market baby business under the guise of an adoption agency. Tann preyed on young women who were forced into motherhood, unwed mothers, and pregnant teenagers. Many didn't understand that when they signed papers with Georgia Tann they were effectively giving up their parental rights. Many thought they would be reunited with their children. However, some mothers are suspected for actually selling their babies to Tann.

Tann had many tactics, some of which included telling the birth mothers that their babies had died shortly after birth. She altered birth certificates, forged documents, and in some instances changed birthdays and names in an attempt to make the child harder to trace.

Authors Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate set off on an unknowing adventure to bring some of these adoptees together for a reunion of sorts. They had no idea what would happen or how many of the adoptees would even want to talk to them. Over the course of this book we get to know several of the families directly affected by Georgia Tann and her baby selling business. Some feel that Tann helped put them into a life worth living. Others remember being placed in homes where families constantly fought and ended up in shattered homes. Regardless of where the ended up, they all came to the same conclusion....something was missing in their lives and they never could place it. Many sought out their adoption records in the hopes to meet their birth families, to meet the people who gave them up and learn their stories. Judy and Lisa recognized this fact and decided to help them right the stories these families wanted to share.

This book was absolutely awe-inspiring and heartbreaking all at once.

The lives these adoptees have lived and the lives they've created along the way will forever be tied to Georgia Tann and TCHS. We may never know how many children were separated from their families. We may never see these families come together with children lost. But one thing is for sure, these adoptees will always have one another.

Looking for the companion novel?

Before We We Yours