Before We Were Yours

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Later, Avery gets a phone call from the nursing home who reveal that May took Avery’s bracelet when she met her and they have it. when Very meets May in the nursing home, she sees a photograph of a woman that resembles her grandmother Judy Stafford, whom May refers to as “Queenie”. I am glad to have learned of this history and to have had the opportunity to learn of it through historical fiction, which I find a valuable medium. I only wish the contemporary story had seemed as serious to me. I do realize that many, if not most readers have or may disagree with me, but I can only speak from my experience.

Avery, eager to uncover the mysterious connection between May and her grandmother, searches through Grandma Judy's old daybooks and finds a phone number for someone on Edisto Island. Avery calls the number and learns that a man named Trent Turner had some confidential documents for Grandma Judy. Avery decides to travel to Edisto Island to retrieve those documents. There, she meets Trent Turner's grandson who goes by the same name. Trent is reluctant to help Avery at first, but eventually shows her the birth certificate and adoption papers for a child named Shad Foss from the 1939. Trent and Avery gradually develop a romance as Avery realizes that Elliot is not right for her. Being unable to learn anything from her, Avery embarks on a personal investigation which includes reading through Judy’s old diaries. Daddy stares out the window, his head resting to one side. He’s relegated his aides and Leslie to another car. Her life. And it’s extremely unlikely that your daughter would ever carry another pregnancy to term. If she were to try, the results could be . . .”Engaging, emotional, a slow unraveling of the history, weaving in present day dilemmas which, needless to say, pale by comparison - against the ones these children endured. That seems to be the way that life is. It’s so easy to complain about small things, until you wake up to the news that Mexico has had a devastating earthquake, or see the latest news about the wildfires in California, or that Puerto Rico still is mostly without electricity, food, water. There are a lot of books that will catch your eye this summer,” concludes Cooper at the end of her 2017 review, “some from our best storytellers. Make sure this one is on your radar. It should not be missed.” Sometimes when the average rating for a book by 65, 652 people is 4.39...we are foolish to not read it. Lisa Wingate is an American novelist, whose style has been described as “masterful,” “lyrical” and “healing” by various publications.

Alternating between the present and the past, this weaves two narratives of some of the children who ended up at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, their story as the children who have just been brought to the TCHS, what treatment they endured, survived – although, not all survived – and how these events shaped them as adults, as parents themselves. Now, I look at my dad and think, How can you not want it, Avery? This is what he’s worked for all his life. What generations of Staffords have strived for since the revolutionary war, for heaven’s sake. Our family has always held fast to the guiding rope of public service. Daddy is no exception. Since graduating from West Point and serving as an Army aviator before I was born, he has upheld the family name with dignity and determination. Leslie is Wells’s personal assistant, who is described as being very competent at the job. Leslie sometimes combines the management and assistant roles of Avery with that of her father, and occasionally farms duties out to Ian, her assistant. When Avery Stafford, the daughter of a prominent Senator stumbles upon the possibility her grandmother is harboring a dark family secret, she nearly becomes obsessed with her mission to uncover the truth. An unnamed narrator says that the story begins in a room she’ll never see on a hot summer night in Baltimore, Maryland in 1939. A young, pretty woman named Christine is screaming and sweating on a hospital bed surrounded by nurses. Christine gives birth to a stillborn daughter, although Christine is too heavily medicated to comprehend what is happening. A doctor walks out to where Christine’s father is anxiously waiting for news. The doctor tells the man that not only was Christine’s daughter stillborn, but that Christine will never be able to safely carry a baby to term. Distraught, the man says that Christine is his only child and that he and his wife had been looking forward to having grandchildren in the house. The doctor leans down and tells the man that there is a woman in Memphis who can help.There she finds a phone number from a certain Trent Turner living on Edisto Island who may know something about her grandmother’s past.

Georgia Tann did indeed facilitate the adoptions of children from the 1920's through the 1950's. Many of the children were not orphans. Many had loving parents who wanted tonraise them. The children were literally kidnapped in broad daylight and no matter how birth parents tried to fight in court, they were not allowed to win. The babies weren't given proper food or medical care. They were to weak and dehydrated to cry. They were tied to beds, and chairs, they were beaten, held under the bath water, and were molested. It was a house of horrors. In the end Georgia Tann died of cancer before before she could be forced to answer charges.She is the sister of Trent Turner Sr. Both kids are abducted and taken to Memphis orphanage home while they are walking by the roadside – and probably heading home. The girls and women in Before We Were Yours are extremely strong & independent. My heart broke for all of the children who spent time in The Tennessee Children’s Home Society or any place that even remotely resembles that. Parts of this story were not easy to read. It is a truly profound & thought-provoking character study, which is full of atrocities that no person, let alone a child, should ever have to endure. While the subject matter is a tough one, the book is very well done and the storylines are intertwined expertly. Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong. Now, life hasn’t been all too kind to Queenie and Briny and their children. They don’t even have a proper home, living on a shanty boat called (ironically) “The Arcadia” on the Mississippi River.

Jonah shakes his head, and Trent gives me a quizzical look, sandy-blond brows twisting together. He has a very flexible forehead. pg. 163 – I mean, this is unbelievably bad. I highly recommend this wonderfully written and well researched book! This will definitely stay on my mind for a long time.

Before We Were Yours” is a touching story about families broken apart and families reunited. It should move deeply almost anyone with a human heart – even though As indicated, I do love a story weaved around a part of history. But what I don't like is when an author just piles on more and more dread and horrible things to happen. It just becomes too much and after awhile, I think the story gets a bit ridiculous (yup, The Nightengale did the same thing) I still maintain that The Heart's Invisible Furies and Pachinko were more deserving of the Goodreads Choice Award for Historical Fiction, but I can definitely see why Before We Were Yours has had such an emotional impact on readers.