BEFORE and AFTER by JUDY CHRISTIE and LISA WINGATE :ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY BOOK REVIEW

BEFORE and AFTER by Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate

The Incredible Read Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived The Tennessee Children's Home Society.

Commentary:  Highly Recommended.

This book is about the children who were adopted through the Tennessee Children's Home Society, which was run by a woman named Georgia Tann, who owned TCHS and whose means for acquiring newborns and babies to be put up for adoption were questionably honorable and then became downright criminal.  These children searched for their birth parents and the news was bad. Georgia Tann died with criminal charges against her business pending.

It's a series of emotional stories by the adoptees and their families describing the situations in which mothers  gave up their babies to Tann. These birth mothers were in desperate circumstances, not unimaginable today, but during the years when social services in America were not in place, when abortion was always dangerous or illegal, and when open adoption was non-existent. Information about the origins of the baby and their parentage was edited by Tann. Adoptive parents were grateful to her and not always asking questions, so long as the baby was healthy. Money went into her pocket. Eventually many others who should have known better were lying to parents that meant to keep their babies that the baby had died in the night.  Instead these were stolen. So imagine if you found out that your parents had been lied to in this way and that you had started life out as a baby they intended to keep.

***

Years ago I had a friend who, with her husband, and after a bout of cancer in her 30's, wished to adopt.  They went through a living hell to qualify to adopt a child, even with the help of a sympathetic and honorable lawyer. Ads were placed in three states where abortion was looked down upon.  Birth mothers phoned long distance.  My friend and her husband had to turn over health and financial records.  The birth mothers who were doing the choosing. My friend and her husband owned a home and had a spare bedroom. 

Good thing because an adopted child had to have their own room. They paid out thousands for investigations and home inspections and interviews.  

They were told there were years long wait for babies born addicted to crack.  Insulting to me, though not personal, was that they also had to have twelve letters of recommendations by other married couples, so unmarried friend's recommendations or input were not sought. And they were told that if either of them hit the age of 40 without adopting it was hopeless.  NO WONDER SO MANY CHILDREN SPEND THEIR LIVES IN FOSTER CARE, where it is OK to be stacked up in bunk beds in shared rooms and people do not have to be homeowners or financially well off.

Her cancer seemed to be an obstacle and after many rejections by birth mothers who were opting for open adoptions, a roller coaster ride of hope and dejection, they never did succeed.

If two college educated people who have a hundred thousand in the bank and own a nice house, have no criminal background or addiction experiences can't get a baby, well, one must have to be really elite.  NO WONDER SO MANY PEOPLE ARE HAVING BABIES BY SURROGATE!

All that said, it seems some, if not many, adoptees do want to know how it is that they were adopted and this book's chapters reveal some of the stories discovered by those adopted out of Tann's business.

***

The following excerpts are so revealing about Tann's "toxic" adoption practices which went on for twenty-five years which ended about 1950 :

Prologue: "Tanns empire at the Tennessee Children;s Home Society - shortened to TCHS by those familiar with the operation - has been built with a combustible blend of desperate pregnant women shattered children, vulnerable poverty-stricken families, eager adoptive parents, powerful politicians, ego, and greed.   ...   The new Tennessee governor, Gordon Browing. appoints attorney Robert Taylor to ferret out the grisly truth of TCHS' Memphis operations.  He has already discovered damning evidence.  Only a small network of co- conspirators know the truth.  With the investigation under way, they flee into the crevasses of Memphis and disappear like rats running into the city's sewers. .... Governor Brown releases Taylor's shocking initial report, which details Tann's years of nefarious dealings in the adoption market.  She has, the governor reveals, made herself rich and completed an unknown number of horrendous deals involving flesh-and-blood products.  ... 

page 7 : Within days --- it is announced that she (Tann) has died. The orphanage is not mentioned. The Tennessee State Legislature quickly and quietly  seals the paperwork of thousands of TCHS children, which will leave adoptees desperately searching for decades to uncover the truth about their heritage. The investigation concludes that Tann profited from the operation of TCHS in Memphis in excess of five hundred thousand dollars in the last ten years of her life (she died age 59 of, interestingly, uterine cancer) in excess of five hundred thousand dollars - taking in today's equivalent of between five and ten million dollars. ....  During that period, the investigation found, she placed more than a thousand children for adoption outside the state of Tennessee, principally in New York and California, the exact number unknown....

************

NOTE: TENNESSEE LAW CHANGES and the records that have been maintained become available though an adoptee  has to pay fees and got though proving they are eligible for the research service.

C 2024  Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

THE FIRST TO KNOW

 

 

THE LIVES OF COLONIAL WOMEN WOMEN VARIED BY ETHNCITY, CLASS, and LOCATION

AMERICAN BATTLEFIELD TRUST on THE LIFESTYLE OF AMERICAN COLONIAL WOMEN 

Excerpt:  The American Battlefield Trust preserves America’s hallowed battlegrounds and educates the public about what happened there and why it matters. As the nation's leading heritage land preservation organization, we have saved more than 57,000 acres of battlefield land in 25 states to date — thanks to the support of our members & partners.

Excerpt from Colonial Women article:

In New England, teachers greatly emphasized literacy for all children to give them the ability to read the Bible as adults, but despite these efforts, female illiteracy became notably widespread, up to 38%, and other regions held even higher numbers. Colonial Virginia and the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam (what became New York) held female illiteracy rates of 70% and 60% respectively. Dutch families in particular only seemed interested in teaching young girls the barest essential reading and writing skills, along with housekeeping and etiquette. Some of the girls from wealthier mercantile families also learned very basic arithmetic and bookkeeping skills. For some families, educating their daughters did not stop at the school house. While lower-class women in the South were barely educated, if at all, upper-class girls from Virginia, for instance, were privately tutored on a variety of subjects, like art, music, dancing, as well as French, all to help maintain an active social life. And thanks to higher rates of literacy, many New England women kept private diaries which contained their thoughts on politics, philosophy, and even some poetry. ...

LORDS PRAYER FAMILY CHART 1890

This image is from The Library of Congress.  The description says it is a print showing an oval design composed of flowers in frames fashioned from tree branches, at center, within the oval is a young girl kneeling before a book open to The Lords Prayer...

It was created in Louisville, Kentucky by C.D. Phelps  C 1890 

GOODBYE MOTHER HELLO WOMAN : ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY BOOK RECOMMENDATION

 

This is the book to read when you want a new relationship with your mother or your daughter. It's designed to be a workbook.  To start you may want to think about what kind of relationship you have now.  Five categories: Best Buddies, Never the Twain Shall Meet, Friends, Nothing in Common, or Strangers.  As a blurb at the start of the book says, most women do not want to be their mothers! So much comes into play; generational differences, personalities, old and ongoing conflicts, world views.

I don't usually include books of the self-help type in this blog, but the FAMILY MAPING and making GENOGRAMS as illustrated in this book is something that I suspect most people who are doing their genealogy are already doing - in their minds. 

Those squares are for the paternal line, the circles for the maternal.  There are even icons you can use when you make your map for died, divorced, conflicted, Indentical twins, and so on.  The idea is to briefly list, under each person on your map or chart, something about their career, personality - the negatives and positives which might be your personal experience or opinion.  Mapped out like this, you might make your own personal genogram and come to some realizations.

Do I suggest you publish such a genogram or family map in your book? Absolutely not.  This is just for you. It's not a suggestion that anyone reveal such personal things to anyone in a book or in a database or on the internet.  Some things are sacred and that should include your personal relationship information.  However, mother's day is coming up, and you have time to read this book and maybe give it as a gift.

That's a hint!

C 2024 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

MY DIFFICULT RESEARCH INTO A PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN IMMIGRANT FAMILY: STEP FOURTEEN : POST #10

Step Fourteen :  Cemetery Records

As started, Find A Grave TM did not have postings for the immigrant nuclear family from Germany-Prussia who lived in Pennsylvania or died there. But something very important to remember is that such tombstone websites DO NOT HAVE ALL THE BURIALS IN A CEMETERY. No they do not. Back in the day the emphasis was not on expensive carved tombstones as there is today. In some cemeteries hundreds of burials never had tombstones or those tombstones were destroyed or removed.  

Additionally in modern times the death certificate and the burial paperwork lean on each other. Team that up with an obituary from the newspaper or website and it's all good. 

I researched German cemeteries in the city and and its vicinity and on the Internet up came a historical one.  Some good souls had listed all the burials in that cemetery.  And under yet another variation of the surname I found both the first female immigrant ancestor of my client and a man who is likely her husband, who lived into his 80's.

I've called that cemetery long distance three times and they NEVER get back to me.  Don't you just hate messages that claim they will call right back?  And there's no information on when someone is in the office - if ever.

I'll let you know.  I'm praying that there is something on the burial about where these people came from.  But the INDEX to the burial does not say!

Posts in this series will be brought up using the label PA-GERM research path

C 2024 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

GENETIC MEMORY? LISTEN TO THIS PODCAST: DOCTOR ODED RECHAVI on HUBER LAB PRODCAST

Dr. Oded Rechavi: Genes & the Inheritance of Memories Across Generations | Huberman Lab Podcast

What is the science behind the notion that our memories are not entirely about our own experience?  Do the hopes and desires of our grandparents within us?  

I'll admit that this requires attentive listening and is not on a 101 level of education, but if you're interested, give it a try!

MY DIFFICULT RESEARCH INTO A PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN IMMIGRANT FAMILY : STEP THIRTEEN : POST #9

Step thirteen : Deaths for the County in Pennsylvania where the Immigrant nuclear family lived. Checking Pennsylvania deaths.

If I had not found the naturalization for the 18 year old mentioned in the previous post, I would not have been able to do this next step.  

Find A Grave TM is a web site I have very mixed feelings about.  People are uploading death certificates and I think that is beyond tacky (defying the sensibility that the dead should be left in peace) but also a total privacy invasion.  Sure, if you find out that some relatives of yours posted, you might be able to take it down, but it was up for the world to see, and that is disrespecting the living too.

As previously stated members of this clients family had gone so far in their research and some of the more modern ancestors generations from the immigrant nuclear family from Germany-Prussia, were on Find A Grave TM.

But one thing we should not forget is that Find A Grave is not the end-all. If this were a more modern family who lived at a time, as we do now, where people were forced to have Identification cards, and their birth, marriage, and death, were documented that would be an early research task. But these people lived in the  - and the full names of family members did not appear until 1850. 

Now that I knew that there was a possibility that the family used a different surname I was able to find the death of the first female immigrant ancestor from Prussia.  She was not yet 40 and had died of TB.

TB usually takes some years to kill a person and it gives us the speculation that this hard-working family had a sick wife and mother that required attention. 

Hold that thought!

Posts in this series will be brought up using the label PA-GERM research path

C 2024 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

MY DIFFICULT RESEARCH INTO A PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN IMMIGRANT FAMILY : STEP TWELVE : POST #8

Step Twelve : Citizenship of the nuclear immigrant family.

Historical research is in order here because in Pennsylvania some people pledged to become citizens of the state early on, and then the requirements for becoming a citizen changed when it came to how many YEARS an immigrant had to wait. But one thing was certain and that is that when the head of household, a man, became a citizen, his wife and all his children who had not reached adulthood would also become citizens. The United States was looking for hard working and self supporting individuals who were also honorable and decent which means that they were not criminals. It helped to integrate into the community and make some friends and go to church. In this case, since we do not know when the family arrived exactly counting years forward isn't precise and then, of course, just because you had to wait a certain number of years does not mean that they didn't wait longer.

In this search I found something of terrific interest that would lead forward the research. Well sort of; it still would not lead to the goal of finding out where in Germany-Prussia our immigrant family came from.  However.... I found the son of the immigrant family had walked in and sworn he had entered Pennsylvania / The United States before the age of 18 and that day he was sworn in.

Again let me remind you to do your historical research.  For instance, while Pennsylvania was a British colony, anyone who immigrated from Britain was already a citizen.  But not Germans.

The pledge this young man made stated the surname we had been looking for but (AMAZING) that he was going forward with a different surname!

Now, in fact he DID NOT go with a different surname when we find him on census forwards.

But at that moment he must have thought he might want to be perhaps more American. That surname was and is far more common and brings up challenges and possibilities.

But why would he have gotten his citizenship having reached the age of 18 by himself?

Maybe the immigrant parents never got their citizenship.  Maybe they were dead!

Posts in this series will be brought up using the label PA-GERM research path

C 2024 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

 

DAFFODILES

Daffodils