Before We Were Yours

by

Lisa Wingate

A notorious child trafficker. Georgia Tann runs the Memphis branch of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society. In conjunction with a loyal group of partners that include police officers and the owners of orphanages, Tann arranges for lower-class children to be kidnapped from their parents. She frequently uses fraudulent paperwork to legitimize her ownership of the children, relying on the ignorance of the lower-class parents who can be convinced to sign them. Tann then gives the children to the highest bidder. Tann not only tricks Queenie and Briny Foss into believing their newborn twins were stillborn so that she can sell them to wealthy adoptive parents, but she has the other Foss children kidnapped and brought to one of her orphanages. Tann works with Ida Murphy to keep the children away from their biological families until they are adopted. Tann and Murphy routinely abuse the children in the orphanage and misrepresent the children’s pasts to make them more appealing to adopters. Eventually, Tann’s crimes are discovered, but she dies before she can be tried and punished for them. Later, one of the children that Tann kidnapped, Trent Turner Sr., devotes his life to helping Tann’s other victims discover what happened to their biological families.

Georgia Tann Quotes in Before We Were Yours

The Before We Were Yours quotes below are all either spoken by Georgia Tann or refer to Georgia Tann. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Personal Identity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 12 Quotes

“Poor little waifs,” she says to the man. “We take them in when they are unwanted and unloved. We provide them with all that their parents cannot or will not give them.”

I bolt my eyes to the ground and make fists behind my back. It’s a lie, I wish I could scream at the man. My mama and daddy want us. They love us. So did the father who came to see his little boy, Lonnie, and ended up broke down on the porch crying like a baby when they said Lonnie’d been adopted.

Related Characters: Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker), Georgia Tann (speaker), Mary Anne “Queenie” Anthony, B. A. “Briny” Foss
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

“They’re perfect in every way,” she says to the guests over and over. “Wonderful physical specimens and mentally advanced for their ages as well. Many come from parents with talents in music and art. Blank slates just waiting to be filled. They can become anything you want them to be.”

Related Characters: Georgia Tann (speaker)
Page Number: 150
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you invented some ridiculous story about your fictitious sister and poor Mr. Riggs.”

Blood pounds in my head. I try to make sense of what she’s saying, but I can’t.

“There never was any… Camellia. You and I both know that, don’t we, May? There were four of you when you came here. Two little sisters and one little brother. Only four. And we’ve done a marvelous job in finding homes, thus far. Good homes. And for that, you are most grateful, aren’t you?” She motions to Mrs. Pulnik. […] “There will be no more of this nonsense out of you. Do you understand?”

Related Characters: Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker), Georgia Tann (speaker), Fern Foss/Beth Weathers, Camellia Foss/Iris Weathers , Lark Foss/Bonnie Weathers, Gabion “Gabby” Foss/Robby Weathers, Mrs. Pulnik, Mr. Riggs, Miss Dodd
Page Number: 185
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

I crave a simple answer to all of this. One I can live with. I don’t want to find out that my grandmother was somehow paying penance for our family’s involvement with the Tennessee Children’s Home Society—that my grandfathers were among the many politicians who protected Georgia Tann and her network, who turned a blind eye to atrocities because powerful families did not want her crimes revealed or their own adoptions nullified.

Related Characters: Avery Judith Stafford (speaker), Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall , Judy Myers Stafford, Georgia Tann
Page Number: 224-225
Explanation and Analysis:

In the end, I’m a Stafford through and through. I tend to assume that I’ll get what I want.

Which, I realize with a shiver, makes me eerily like the adoptive parents who inadvertently funded Georgia Tann’s business. No doubt some were well-meaning people and some of the children really did need homes, but others, especially those who knew that exorbitant fees were being forked over for made-to-order sons and daughters, must have had some idea of what was happening. They just assumed that money, power, and social position gave them the right.

Related Characters: Avery Judith Stafford (speaker), Georgia Tann
Page Number: 230-231
Explanation and Analysis:
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Georgia Tann Quotes in Before We Were Yours

The Before We Were Yours quotes below are all either spoken by Georgia Tann or refer to Georgia Tann. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Personal Identity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 12 Quotes

“Poor little waifs,” she says to the man. “We take them in when they are unwanted and unloved. We provide them with all that their parents cannot or will not give them.”

I bolt my eyes to the ground and make fists behind my back. It’s a lie, I wish I could scream at the man. My mama and daddy want us. They love us. So did the father who came to see his little boy, Lonnie, and ended up broke down on the porch crying like a baby when they said Lonnie’d been adopted.

Related Characters: Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker), Georgia Tann (speaker), Mary Anne “Queenie” Anthony, B. A. “Briny” Foss
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

“They’re perfect in every way,” she says to the guests over and over. “Wonderful physical specimens and mentally advanced for their ages as well. Many come from parents with talents in music and art. Blank slates just waiting to be filled. They can become anything you want them to be.”

Related Characters: Georgia Tann (speaker)
Page Number: 150
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you invented some ridiculous story about your fictitious sister and poor Mr. Riggs.”

Blood pounds in my head. I try to make sense of what she’s saying, but I can’t.

“There never was any… Camellia. You and I both know that, don’t we, May? There were four of you when you came here. Two little sisters and one little brother. Only four. And we’ve done a marvelous job in finding homes, thus far. Good homes. And for that, you are most grateful, aren’t you?” She motions to Mrs. Pulnik. […] “There will be no more of this nonsense out of you. Do you understand?”

Related Characters: Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall (speaker), Georgia Tann (speaker), Fern Foss/Beth Weathers, Camellia Foss/Iris Weathers , Lark Foss/Bonnie Weathers, Gabion “Gabby” Foss/Robby Weathers, Mrs. Pulnik, Mr. Riggs, Miss Dodd
Page Number: 185
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

I crave a simple answer to all of this. One I can live with. I don’t want to find out that my grandmother was somehow paying penance for our family’s involvement with the Tennessee Children’s Home Society—that my grandfathers were among the many politicians who protected Georgia Tann and her network, who turned a blind eye to atrocities because powerful families did not want her crimes revealed or their own adoptions nullified.

Related Characters: Avery Judith Stafford (speaker), Rill Foss/May Weathers Crandall , Judy Myers Stafford, Georgia Tann
Page Number: 224-225
Explanation and Analysis:

In the end, I’m a Stafford through and through. I tend to assume that I’ll get what I want.

Which, I realize with a shiver, makes me eerily like the adoptive parents who inadvertently funded Georgia Tann’s business. No doubt some were well-meaning people and some of the children really did need homes, but others, especially those who knew that exorbitant fees were being forked over for made-to-order sons and daughters, must have had some idea of what was happening. They just assumed that money, power, and social position gave them the right.

Related Characters: Avery Judith Stafford (speaker), Georgia Tann
Page Number: 230-231
Explanation and Analysis: