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!
Today we are embarking on the wonderful trip to the beautiful island of Sri Lanka! Or at least this is what we told ourselves before we hopped onto our plane, for the next 22 hours. It was the 18th of December, and we were just about out the door and ready to go international!
At the Los Angeles International Airport! (Image by the Jayasinghe Family)
We woke up early that Tuesday morning, excited and ready to take the long journey to Sri Lanka. Kiran, Svara and I were jazzed up and excited, but our parents, having taken this flight before, advised us wisely that it was no party. Even with what they told us, we didn’t take them seriously and continued to be jumping beans. Boy, were we mistaken. We drove to the Los Angeles International Airport which took about two hours. When we arrived at the airport, we were still excited and not especially exhausted by the long drive we had just endured. We said goodbye to our grandparents, who had accompanied us to the airport. Everyone said their goodbyes and we walked to our terminal.
We would be flying on Korean Airlines for the first time. The airline had good reviews, but we did not know what to expect. None of the airlines that we usually fly on have flights to Sri Lanka, and Kiran, Svara and I had never been on an international flight except for when we were two. When we got to the baggage check-in desk, we were told that there was a problem on Dad’s ticket! He was actually put in a different flight. We ended up standing there for a long time waiting for the airline to correct the mistake.
While we were waiting, we had plenty of time to check out the screens behind the check-in desk. These featured a video of the first-class seats. Our dad had told us that we would be flying on the biggest passenger plane there is. Nicknamed the ‘whale’, our plane had two decks of passengers and could seat 500 people. Passengers flying premium or flying first class would sit on the upper deck. Those passengers would get private cubicles with remote control walls, and seats that converted into beds. Our dad took the liberty of reminding us that those seats would be where mom and dad were sitting if they did not have kids! After a short wait, the problem with the tickets got fixed and we checked in our baggage. Whenever we travel on a plane, we always have weight problems with the suitcases that belong to our parents. Especially this trip, we had to take a suitcase with just presents for our relatives. When we weighed our bags, a couple suitcases were overweight, but the person who was helping us said she would let them slide and sent us on our way.
We now hurried to the security checkpoint. We put our things on the conveyor belt and made sure all liquids and electronics were out of our bags. Afterwards, we went through the hectic process of putting everything back into the carry-on bags and making sure everything was still in our bags and checked that we did not lose anything. Then we hurried to the gate. Our mom poked around in some of the shops on the way to the gate. Somewhere along the way we realized that we had not had breakfast and we grabbed a bite to eat from a cafe on the way to the gate.
We made it with about ten minutes to spare. Soon, the premier passengers started boarding. A couple minutes after they boarded the top deck, or first class passengers, they started the line for us to board. We found our seats and realized that we had been given the bassinet seats. This meant that there were no people in front of the three of our seats. This was devastating information. Our seats meant that we could not keep our carry-ons by our feet. This was far from ideal, as we had packed our carry-ons as our survival packs with all the books and electronics that would have helped us survive the horrendously long flight. After settling in to our seats and figuring out how things would work, we buckled up and got ready to fly. We took off around 11:30, and soon after we were served our first meal about two hours into the flight. This would be lunch. After that our dad took our carry-ons down from the overhead bins, where the flight attendants had stored them, and we got out our electronics. I plugged in my phone and listened to some music to drown out everything else. Over the next few hours, I read some iBooks that I had downloaded, listened to music, and attempted to watch a movie. None of the movie selections that they provided were entertaining, and most of them were not age-appropriate, so I didn’t end up watching any movies on the flight. Kiran, Svara, and I got to experience the deliciousness that is airplane food, for the first time. They almost always had beef, chicken, and fish options. Sometimes there was a Korean rice dish option, but we usually stuck to what we knew. The last thing any of us wanted, was a stomach upset. After what seemed like more than ten hours, we were all miserable, and I turned around to ask our parents in the seats behind us, how much time we had left. They looked at each other and told us that we had a staggering nine hours left! It had only been four hours and we were dead.
At the Incheon Airport in Korea! Getting ready for our next flight. (Image by the Jayasinghe Family)
By the time we finally touched down at the Incheon Airport in Seoul, South Korea, we were all miserable. Sleeping on planes has never come easily to me or my sisters, and we did not sleep at all on the whole flight. We had a five hour layover in Korea, and all we wanted to do was to sleep. Incheon Airport has a Transit Hotel, where you could get a room for as little as six hours. Our dad payed for a hotel room and we all traipsed in. We dropped our bags and we were out! We slept for a couple hours and then we got ready to leave. It never feels good if you have to stay in the same, sweaty clothes for long periods of time, so we took a shower and changed into fresh clothes. We then proceeded to the nearest Starbucks like zombies. We were surprised at how different the Starbucks was! After a double chocolate creme frappuccino, I was still not ready to have seven more hours on a plane. But the universe never listens to what I want, so we boarded our flight to Sri Lanka!
We had better seating this time, and none of us had to have the exit row seats. Somehow this flight was more miserable than the thirteen hour flight. Knowing that this was the second flight was more grueling. This flight was also during nighttime so that was horrible. Since I couldn’t sleep, I put on my headphones, played some music, closed my eyes, and pretended that I was asleep. For some reason, my internal clock was very messed up. Since there was no WiFi on the plane, I did not know what time it was because my phone was still on California time. My thought process was more like, “Oh, there’s the food cart. I wonder which meal this is supposed to be.” The flight felt like way more than seven hours. Trying to pass the time was like looking at the clock every time one minute went by. Dehydration was my problem. I did not have a water bottle with me as we could not take outside water bottles on the plane. I would have thrown up if not for the countless little cups of water I asked for from the flight attendant. Slowly, the hours went by and by the end, I could not stand to look at the inside of another plane.
At the Bandaranaike International Airport with our mom’s cousin! (Image by the Jayasinghe Family)
We landed at Bandaranaike International Airport, at 4:00 am. The airport was about 40 minutes from Columbo. Kiran, Svara, and I were very tired, but excited that we were finally off of the plane and on solid ground. We were looking forward to the hotel and the rest of our trip. Our journey had come to an end.
To see the post on the next day of our trip, click here.
