Before and After

The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children's Home Society

By: Judy Christie, Lisa Wingate

Narrated by: Emily Rankin

The compelling, poignant true stories of victims of a notorious adoption scandal—some of whom learned the truth from Lisa Wingate’s bestselling novel Before We Were Yours and were reunited with birth family members as a result of its wide reach

From the 1920s to 1950, Georgia Tann ran a black-market baby business at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis. She offered up more than 5,000 orphans tailored to the wish lists of eager parents—hiding the fact that many weren’t orphans at all, but stolen sons and daughters of poor families, desperate single mothers, and women told in maternity wards that their babies had died.

The publication of Lisa Wingate’s novel Before We Were Yours brought new awareness of Tann’s lucrative career in child trafficking. Adoptees who knew little about their pasts gained insight into the startling facts behind their family histories. Encouraged by their contact with Wingate and award-winning journalist Judy Christie, who documented the stories of fifteen adoptees in this book, many determined Tann survivors set out to trace their roots and find their birth families.

Before and After includes moving and sometimes shocking accounts of the ways in which adoptees were separated from their first families. Often raised as only children, many have joyfully reunited with siblings in the final decades of their lives. Christie and Wingate tell of first meetings that are all the sweeter and more intense for time missed and of families from very different social backgrounds reaching out to embrace better-late-than-never brothers, sisters, and cousins. In a poignant culmination of art meeting life, many of the long-silent victims of the tragically corrupt system return to Memphis with the authors to reclaim their stories at a Tennessee Children’s Home Society reunion . . . with extraordinary results.

Advance praise for Before and After

“In Before and After, authors Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate tackle the true stories behind Wingate’s blockbuster Before We Were Yours, of the orphans who survived the Tennessee Children’s Home Society. With a journalist’s keen eye and a novelist’s elegant prose, Christie and Wingate weave together the stories that inspired Before We Were Yours with the lives that were changed as a result of reading the novel. Readers will be educated, enlightened, and enraptured by this important and flawlessly executed book.”—Pam Jenoff, author of The Orphan’s Tale and The Lost Girls of Paris

All MUST Read!!!

It’s so important for this story to get out to all so that history is not repeated in such a horrific manner!!

Wonderful follow up!

I am so glad that this book was undertaken to bring closure and peace to some. This group of adoptees, their families and extended families felt a part of a welcoming community of despite their lives being shrouded in conspiracies, lies and half truths. Reading this is a must if you enjoyed “Before We Were Yours.”

Amazing!!! I loved this book!

Definitely recommend. Thank you to Lisa and Judy and those willing to share their stories. I'm saddened that this happened but I'm glad that people are talking about it so we don't make the same mistakes. We all need to speak up and stand up for what's right!

Beautifully told story for truly horrific crimes

I have heard several podcasts about Georgia Tam. So I pulled some books to learn more about what happened. It’s a Beautifully told story for truly horrific crimes.

Wonderful!

I greatly enjoyed this book. As others have noted, the story is as much of the author’s as the adoptees & their families. For folks that enjoy adoption stories and history, this is a good book.