Book Review - Before We Were Yours
Before We Were Yours, by Lisa Wingate is a captivating story about the horrible time when Georgia Tann abducted children from their families and brought them to the Memphis Tennessee Children's Home to eventually sell them to the elite. Upper-class families (celebrities, politicians, doctors, etc) who cannot have children of their own would purchase young children from this home without knowing where they came from or the conditions of the care they received from the Children's home.
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Summary:
Before We Were Yours tells the story of a family who lives on their boat along the river outside of Memphis. Briny and Queenie have 4 young children when the story begins and Queenie is about to give birth to twins. During a horrible storm one night, Queenie goes into labor and struggles to deliver her babies. After a midwife declares that without doctor care, Queenie and the babies may not survive childbirth, Briny rushes to the hospital in Memphis with his wife.
Rill is the oldest of the 4 children. At only 12 years old, she was left to care for the little ones until her parents returned with the new babies. A few days after her parents left them on the boat, some men show up and take the kids away. Rill thinks they're being taken to see their parents at the hospital, but they end up at a large home full of other kids from the age of babies to adolescents.
As the oldest sibling, she tries to console her siblings and convince them that their dad will find them and take them home.
LIFE AS THEY KNEW IT IS GONE
The woman that runs the big house full of kids does not treat the children well. Rill and her siblings are placed in a room in the cold basement of the house to sleep. They have to take baths one by one with the rest of the children, one by one, using the same water. The food they're provided is not much more than slop. If Mrs. Murphy feels that someone has misbehaved, they are punished, creating fear with Rill and her siblings.
With each passing day, Rill begins to realize that her father is probably not coming to pick them up. Her brother is taken away and her sister, who kept raising a fuss comes up missing. Finally, Rill's sister Fern is taken away. When Rill believes she has found a way to escape, she is taken to where Fern is and finds out she is going to be adopted by the same family who has taken Rill.
In time, Rill and Fern's new family makes them feel at home and proves that they love the girls and they can count on them.
FAST FORWARD 70 YEARS
Avery Stafford is part of a political family in the south. She had to leave her home in DC where she practiced law, to be available for her father who is the Senator of South Carolina. He is suffering from cancer and might have to retire. His team is grooming Avery to take his place.
When visiting a funeral home one day as a media event, a woman in the home reacts to Avery, calling her Fern. A connection is made between the 2 women and Avery ends up in May Crandall's room. While visiting May one day, Avery sees a photo with 4 women, one who looks a lot like her grandmother Judy. When she asks a memory-fading May who the women are in the photo, she begins to share bits of her life.
Curiosity got the best of Avery Stafford. Her grandmother is in a Memory Care facility now that she's living with dementia. She visits her grandmother to ask if she knows a May Crandall. Unfortunately, Avery's grandmother isn't any help in solving the mystery. However, her grandmother did ask Avery a favor. She asked her to clean out a closet in her home.
When Avery is going through her grandmother's things, she finds a note pad with an impression of a man's name from Edisto Island. Avery makes a phone call in hopes of getting some answers regarding the connection between the man's name and her grandmother. When the man on the phone won't answer any questions, Avery drives to Edisto Island to further her mystery-solving.
The man whose name was on Grandma Judy's note pad has passed away. His grandson is running the family business in Edisto Island. Avery uses her legal persuasive skills to get young Trent to help her solve the mystery of the connection between May Crandall and her grandmother.
After some convincing, Trent shares his grandfather's office with Avery in hopes of finding a connection. Luckily, questions were answered in the old books and notes left by Trent's grandfather, who was a private detective. He used to help people find long lost relatives who had been separated after being placed in the Memphis Tennessee Children's Home.
READ THE STORY TO FILL IN THE MISSING PIECES
In an effort to not share the entire story, I encourage you to read this story. There is so much more to learn about how Judy and May are connected as well as what happens with Rill and Fern.
REVIEW:
I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I began to do a little research to determine if this truly was a historical fiction story. When I went into Amazon to read some of the summarizations I went down to the reviews and was shocked to find a couple of negative (harshly negative) reviews.
This was the first story I've written by Lisa Wingate and as soon as I was done, I looked for other books written by her. I enjoyed this book that much. She did a wonderful job of gathering the history of the Memphis Tennessee Children's Home as well as incorporating the dialect of the Memphis area from the 30's. I felt that she organized the story well. Sometimes it's difficult to follow stories that go back and forth between multiple time frames.
The description of life in the Children's Home was very revealing and disturbing. This story provides all of the feels - Unending love of family, heartbreak, dislike of humankind, love... as well as satisfying the happy result of a mystery.
I would absolutely recommend this story to any reader. In fact, I have recommended it to friends and have loaned it out already. Enjoy!
Until my next review...
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