by Simran Jayasinghe
Before We Were Yours follows two stories, generations apart, linked together through long-forgotten events. One story is set in Memphis, 1939, while the other is set in present-day, Aiken, South Carolina.
Memphis, 1939 – Twelve year old Rill Foss, her four younger siblings, and her parents, live aboard the family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. One night, their father must rush their mother to the hospital in the middle of the night, and Rill is left in charge. Strangers arrive and forcibly remove Rill and her siblings from their home on the river. They are thrown into Tennessee’s Children Home Society’s orphanage, and are told that they will be returned to their parents as soon as is possible – but the children quickly realize that the explanation they are given is far from the truth. Rill must do everything a twelve year old can to keep what is left of her family together and safe.
Aiken, South Carolina, present-day – Avery Stafford has a successful career as a federal prosecutor, and has just gotten her life in order. But when Avery returns to her home, to help her father through a health emergency, she happens to stumble upon a little piece of information that leaves her with a boatload of curiosity and not enough answers. She starts to question her perfect, privileged life, and against her better judgement, takes a journey through her family’s secretive and long-lost history, to uncover the truth that has been buried for generations.
Before We Were Yours is a historical fiction novel, based on true events. The story is based on the Tennessee Children’s Home Society scandal of 1924. To the general public, The Tennessee Children’s Home Society, led by Georgia Tann, was an adoption agency, that tried to find the perfect home for the orphans and abandoned children in their care. In reality, the adoption agency kidnapped children, mostly from poor families, and selling them, as orphans, under new names, for the highest price they could find. This went on for twenty-six years, from 1924 to 1950. Over that period of time, around 5,000 children were sold through this system, and around 500 died because of poor care and abuse. Georgia Tann was able to keep the business running by bribing officials, and by keeping good relations with wealthy, influential, families. In 1950, the incoming Governor of Tennessee caught news of the scandal, and launched an investigation. Georgia Tann, however, passed away, from cancer, just before the illegal operations were revealed to the public. The Tennessee Children’s Home Society shut down a couple of months afterward.
I would definitely recommend reading this book. I really found this book interesting, as I had never read a book about the Tennessee Children’s Home Society Scandal before. I thought it was interesting and different that most books that I usually read. Sometimes I found it a little challenging to keep track of all the characters between the two different story lines, but it wasn’t a major issue for me, as the story went on. I would rate this story a 10 out of 10, because it was an interesting read, and I loved it!