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 best-selling 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 15 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)

©2019 Lisa Wingate and Judy Christie (P)2019 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Lisa Wingate’s number one New York Times best-selling novel Before We Were Yours brought worldwide attention to a shocking scandal of lost and stolen children. What she couldn’t know was that her novel would also become the catalyst for survivors, now in old age, to share their stories. Before and After, while at times a very sad and shocking read, is ultimately a collection of astonishing real-life stories of strength, hope, and resilience in the face of the cruelest circumstances. If you read Before We Were Yours, you will devour Before and After.” (Amy Hill Hearth, New York Times best-selling author of Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years)

“Fans who couldn’t get enough of Before We Were Yours will devour this book in a single sitting. In Before and After, Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate gracefully chronicle the experiences of survivors forever affected by a corrupt Tennessee orphanage, leading many to a life-altering reunion in search of healing.... Not only a heart-wrenching and inspiring read but also a testament to the incredible power of storytelling.” (Kristina McMorris, author of Sold on a Monday and The Edge of Lost)

“Truly fascinating accounts of relatives lost and found, and of the reverberations through generations of countless families caused by a single person’s greed, these stories of strength, hope, and uncertainty will remain with me.” (Cea Sunrise Person, author of North of Normal: A Memoir of My Wilderness Childhood, My Unusual Family, and How I Survived Both)

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!

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!!

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.

Must Read!

I couldn't stop listening! Tugs at your heart with all the personal stories shared.

aqesome history lesson

loved the book before we were yours so this book was great to hear more of the stories behind it

So important!

I love that families learned more about their history. What an excellent true story of so many children.

Wow. So interesting....

After reading 'Before we were yours' this book brought home the magnitude of the situation. I found it so interesting how much separated siblings shared in common though not knowing each other for decades! The experience of each person was captivating. Some were fine and forgiving....others troubled and incomplete. I felt it a privilege to get to know thier stories. They we were worth telling and I wont ever forget them. I will read this more than once.....

Follow up

This was a great factual follow up to the book BEFORE WE WERE YOURS. It added the truth to the novel. Being an MSW in the field of adoption I could understand the vulnerable children. The other side of natural families effected are the adoptive couples. They too are highly emotional and vulnerable. Some said that for evil to prevail good people do nothing. Better practices occur today.