For 20 years, a Tennessee baby thief kidnapped more than 5,000 children from the streets, hospitals, and shanty towns of Memphis. Now, 70 years later, survivors of her 'house of horrors' are confronting the past.
For 20 years, a Tennessee baby thief kidnapped more than 5,000 children from the streets, hospitals, and shanty towns of Memphis. Now, 70 years later, survivors of her 'house of horrors' are confronting the past.
No one knows or perhaps cares to remember the exact day the Tennessee Children's Home Society in Memphis closed. What is known is that 69 years ago, in late November or early December, the place workers later called "a house of horrors" closed its doors for good.
Shutting the Children's Home Society down may have cast it into obscurity, but by then the home had already permanently changed the lives of more than 5,000 children. The unimaginable horror of the place still reverberates today not because many of the children were orphaned or abused but because they were stolen.
The little-known story caught the attention of fiction author Lisa Wingate when she saw a late-night episode of "Deadly Women" on the Discovery Channel about the children's home matriarch, Georgia Tann.
"I wondered if it was all true or was sensationalized for TV," Wingate told Insider. "So I started digging. I had to know more." The result was "Before We Were Yours," a fictional account of the orphanage told through the eyes of 12-year-old Rill Foss. Released in 2017, the book stayed on top of best-seller lists for over a year.
"People would write or email and say, 'This book is about my mother' or 'I think I might be one of the stolen babies,'" Wingate said.
For more than 20 years, Tann ran the Tennessee Children's Home Society, where she and an elaborate network of coconspirators kidnapped and abused children to sell them off to wealthy adoptive parents at a steep profit.
Her favorite scheme was to drive through impoverished neighborhoods, picking out the prettiest children, then offer them rides in her shiny black luxury car. Once the children were in, they usually never saw their families again.
Tann took advantage of the lack of regulation around adoption to perpetuate her scheme, relying on the desperation of would-be parents to keep them quiet. According to reports done after the home was closed, many children died while under Tann's care. Those who managed to survive TCHS are still grappling with Tann's unchecked cruelty and greed.
In 2018, spurred by interest in her book, Wingate organized a Children's Home Society adoptee reunion with help from fellow author Judy Christie. This fall, many of the adoptees from the first event, along with several newly found adoptees, attended a second reunion.
To tell the story of the Tennessee Children's Home Society and Georgia Tann, Insider spoke with several survivors of Tann's baby-trafficking business, many of whom have spent a lifetime trying to figure out who they are. We also examined the Memphis Library's extensive archives on the Home Society and read contemporaneous reports from investigators who uncovered and documented the horrors there.
The receiving home at the Tennessee Children's Home Society.
Tann first tried her child-stealing scam at a Mississippi children's home, but she was run out of town
Beulah George "Georgia" Tann was born in 1891 in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Named for her father, a powerful judge, she hoped to follow in his footsteps and practice law. Instead, her domineering father forbade it, and she instead pursued a career in social work — one of the few socially acceptable positions for a woman of her means.
She first went to work in Mississippi, but she was soon fired for inappropriately removing children from impoverished homes without cause. She made her way to Texas, where it's believed she adopted her daughter, June, in 1922. Later, in 1943, she adopted Ann Atwood Hollinsworth, a woman believed to be Tann's longtime same-sex partner. It was common at the time for same-sex couples to use adult adoption as a means of transferring property or inheritances.
Tann then moved on to Memphis, where her father used his political connections to secure a new job for her as executive secretary at the Memphis branch of the Tennessee Children's Home Society in 1922.
By 1929, she had staged a takeover and named herself executive director.
Sallie Brandon's new mother had a professional photographer take this photo of her the day she was adopted. She was 3 years old.
Sallie Brandon is one of the few Children's Home Society adoptees who still remember Tann.
"She was a rounded lady who wore glasses and carried a little purse," Brandon told Insider. "I remember her being a stern, severe woman." Brandon and her two brothers were separated and sold by Tann. With their blond hair and blue eyes, the trio was perfect prey for Tann. She pocketed close to $2,700 in the deal, nearly $40,000 in today's money.
For 20 years, a Tennessee baby thief kidnapped more than 5,000 children from the streets, hospitals, and shanty towns of Memphis. Now, 70 years later, survivors of her 'house of horrors' are confronting the past.
No one knows or perhaps cares to remember the exact day the Tennessee Children's Home Society in Memphis closed. What is known is that 69 years ago, in late November or early December, the place workers later called "a house of horrors" closed its doors for good.
Shutting the Children's Home Society down may have cast it into obscurity, but by then the home had already permanently changed the lives of more than 5,000 children. The unimaginable horror of the place still reverberates today not because many of the children were orphaned or abused but because they were stolen.
The little-known story caught the attention of fiction author Lisa Wingate when she saw a late-night episode of "Deadly Women" on the Discovery Channel about the children's home matriarch, Georgia Tann.
"I wondered if it was all true or was sensationalized for TV," Wingate told Insider. "So I started digging. I had to know more." The result was "Before We Were Yours," a fictional account of the orphanage told through the eyes of 12-year-old Rill Foss. Released in 2017, the book stayed on top of best-seller lists for over a year.
"People would write or email and say, 'This book is about my mother' or 'I think I might be one of the stolen babies,'" Wingate said.
For more than 20 years, Tann ran the Tennessee Children's Home Society, where she and an elaborate network of coconspirators kidnapped and abused children to sell them off to wealthy adoptive parents at a steep profit.
Her favorite scheme was to drive through impoverished neighborhoods, picking out the prettiest children, then offer them rides in her shiny black luxury car. Once the children were in, they usually never saw their families again.
Tann took advantage of the lack of regulation around adoption to perpetuate her scheme, relying on the desperation of would-be parents to keep them quiet. According to reports done after the home was closed, many children died while under Tann's care. Those who managed to survive TCHS are still grappling with Tann's unchecked cruelty and greed.
In 2018, spurred by interest in her book, Wingate organized a Children's Home Society adoptee reunion with help from fellow author Judy Christie. This fall, many of the adoptees from the first event, along with several newly found adoptees, attended a second reunion.
To tell the story of the Tennessee Children's Home Society and Georgia Tann, Insider spoke with several survivors of Tann's baby-trafficking business, many of whom have spent a lifetime trying to figure out who they are. We also examined the Memphis Library's extensive archives on the Home Society and read contemporaneous reports from investigators who uncovered and documented the horrors there.
The receiving home at the Tennessee Children's Home Society.
Tann first tried her child-stealing scam at a Mississippi children's home, but she was run out of town
Beulah George "Georgia" Tann was born in 1891 in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Named for her father, a powerful judge, she hoped to follow in his footsteps and practice law. Instead, her domineering father forbade it, and she instead pursued a career in social work — one of the few socially acceptable positions for a woman of her means.
She first went to work in Mississippi, but she was soon fired for inappropriately removing children from impoverished homes without cause. She made her way to Texas, where it's believed she adopted her daughter, June, in 1922. Later, in 1943, she adopted Ann Atwood Hollinsworth, a woman believed to be Tann's longtime same-sex partner. It was common at the time for same-sex couples to use adult adoption as a means of transferring property or inheritances.
Tann then moved on to Memphis, where her father used his political connections to secure a new job for her as executive secretary at the Memphis branch of the Tennessee Children's Home Society in 1922.
By 1929, she had staged a takeover and named herself executive director.
Sallie Brandon's new mother had a professional photographer take this photo of her the day she was adopted. She was 3 years old.
Sallie Brandon is one of the few Children's Home Society adoptees who still remember Tann.
"She was a rounded lady who wore glasses and carried a little purse," Brandon told Insider. "I remember her being a stern, severe woman." Brandon and her two brothers were separated and sold by Tann. With their blond hair and blue eyes, the trio was perfect prey for Tann. She pocketed close to $2,700 in the deal, nearly $40,000 in today's money.
