Before We Were Yours is a historical fiction based on the real and heart-breaking scandal of child kidnappings and paid adoptions from the Tennessee Children’s Home Society.
Children were treated like a type of rare commodity. Sadly, abuse and even death awaited some of the unfortunates who passed through the society. Some of the children taken in had families, but the society acted as if they did not.
As a student of forgotten history, I didn’t want to believe that such things could have happened in the United States and, relatively, recently. But, it’s true.
“The Foss children and the Arcadia were formed from the dust of imagination and the muddy waters of the Mississippi River. Though Rill and her siblings exist only in these pages, their experiences mirror those reported by children who were taken from their families from the 1920s through 1950.” pg 295, ebook
Lisa Wingate tells the story in two different timelines – one in 1939 and the other in the modern day. The earlier story line is by far the most compelling.
Readers meet Rill Foss, one of five children belonging to an itinerant family who live on the Mississippi River in their house boat. Her story begins the night her mother, Queenie, is having trouble delivering a new baby.
When Rill’s father, Briny, takes Queenie to the local hospital for help, something terrible happens to the children they leave behind.
Meanwhile in the modern day, Avery Stafford has moved home to help her father, a senator, during his re-election campaign. There are also concerns about her father’s health as well as her upcoming nuptials to organize.
But then she stumbles upon an elderly woman who has a picture that closely resembles Avery’s own grandmother. Could there be a connection between the two?
“Grief and a change of location can often be more than the mind and body can handle.” pg 43, ebook
Of the two stories, the earlier one is far more interesting. Rill is such a strong and indefatigable heroine in her struggle to keep her siblings together. I was enthralled by each chapter narrating her life.
The Avery portion of the story, on the other hand, was just so predictable. If Before We Were Yours had just been the modern story, this book would hardly have earned a mention from me, let alone netting the Goodreads Choice Award for historical fiction from 2017.
“Life is not unlike cinema. Each scene has its own music, and the music is created for the scene, woven to it in ways we do not understand.” pg 278
Recommended for readers who enjoy historical fiction as well as book clubs.
In the future, I may pen a History Guy episode about the Tennessee Children’s Home Society. It seems to me that the fate of these poor children, now grown and many departed from this life, is history that deserves to be remembered.
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