The
story of Georgia Tann is one of intrigue, fascination, horror,
disbelief and many more words of description. It is a story of a very
influential woman who was born and raised in Hickory, Mississippi. She
achieved a position of outstanding prominence. She was very wealthy and
fraternized with the elite. Her life was one of fraternizing with the
elite. Eleanor Roosevelt sought her counsel regarding child welfare.
Pearl Buck asked her to collaborate on a book about adoption. She
received a personal invitation to President Truman's Inauguration. She
traveled in politically elite circles. And, while doing all of this,
she visited with her mother often in Hickory. The beautiful Tann home,
which is the second oldest home in Hickory, is located near Highway
503. There are residents in the home today and the home still has
visions of grandeur.
Georgia
Tann is buried in the Hickory Cemetery along with her parents, George
Clark Tann and Beulah Yates Tann, and her brother, Rob Roy Tann. It is a
very nice Tann burial plot. Standing over Georgia's grave in the
Hickory Cemetery, the average person would never know the controversy
she stirred up during her lifetime. She had one of the largest black
markets for children ever seen in the United States. From 1924 to 1950,
Georgia Tann stole, or otherwise separated, more than 5,000 children
from their families.
Louise
Bailey and I have long been interested in the Georgia Tann story and,
in 2009, conducted extensive research on her activities using both
primary and secondary sources as well as many interviews. A major
source of information came from the book The Baby Thief by
Barbara Raymond. The television movie, "Stolen Babies," was released in
1993 with Mary Tyler Moore portraying Georgia Tann. Articles on Tann's
life also have been published in Good Housekeeping magazine. The Meridian Star
did an article on Georgia Tann on March 25, 1993. Georgia Tann also
gained national media attention on television series such as "Unsolved
Mysteries" and “Probe."
We
do not know much about Georgia's young years in Hickory. Georgia's
father was the most influential person in her life. Her feelings toward
him were a mix of love and hate, or wanting to prove herself to him and
to defy him. Georgia's parents were Judge George Clark Tann and Beulah
Yates Tann. George Clark Tann's grandfather had served under William
Henry Harrison at the Battle of Tippecanoe and his father was a
Confederate war hero. George himself was the most educated man in
Newton County and Judge of the Mississippi Second Chancery District
Court. While George was respected, he was not well liked for he was
arrogant, argumentative, and domineering. Georgia had a brother, Rob
Roy Tann, who was three years older. While serving in World War I, he
suffered what was then called shell shock and for the rest of his life
suffered from tremors. He died of tuberculosis at age 46.
Above: Georgia Tann, with the help of a barber,
grooms Lucy, a ward, for adoption.
grooms Lucy, a ward, for adoption.
Georgia
majored in music and, after graduating in 1913 from Martha Washington
College in Abingdon, Virginia, she taught school briefly in Columbus,
Mississippi. However, she lacked the patience for teaching and may well
have considered it an old-fashioned profession.
Georgia
was also familiar with social work, at that time in its infancy, having
long practiced a form of it herself. Charity work was a refuge during
her adolescence, perhaps providing an excuse for her absence from local
parties and dances. While other girls primped for the parties, she put
on starched, long-sleeved blouses and skirts that swept the floor and
visited the local poor.
By
1920, exploiting the lack of regulations on adoption and her father's
position as a judge, Tann began placing children she had kidnapped from
poor women. Georgia began working for Kate McWillie Powers Receiving
Home for Children in Jackson which was affiliated with the Mississippi
Children's Home Society. Georgia was run out of Mississippi for her
"child-placing" methods and went to Texas. Georgia then moved to
Memphis, TN. She became Executive Director of the Memphis branch of
the Tennessee Children's Home Society.
Barbara Raymond said in her book, The Baby Thief, "Scores
of children in the custody of Tann's Tennessee Children's Home Society
died, making Memphis' infant mortality rate the highest in the country.
Yet Tann was publicly lauded for her work. She also amassed a personal
fortune selling children to the wealthy (including actors June Allyson,
Dick Powell, and Joan Crawford). Virtually no robbed parents got their
children back."
Above: Memphis Home of Georgia Tann
There
seemed to be no end to the pain that Georgia caused. While building
her black market business, she had invented modern American adoption.
To cover her kidnapping crimes, she falsified adoptees birth
certificates, issued false certificates, and portrayed their adoptive
parents as their birth parents.
In
1950, the Tennessee Governor finally acknowledged Georgia's crimes.
The adoptive parents could not bring themselves to investigate whether
their children had been stolen for fear of having to return them.
Georgia
had many accomplices: Politicians, legislators, judges, attorneys,
doctors, nurses, and social workers who scouted child victims. She
operated for 26 years. It was not until she was three days from death
with cancer that a Tennessee official told of her crimes.
If
the story of Georgia Tann teaches us anything, it is the importance of
ridding adoption of lies and secrets. Thankfully, much as been done
since Georgia's death to help parents find children through well
respected adoption agencies.
Written By: Lois Cooper
A 1940's Tennessee welfare worker learns that Georgia Tann, the
charismatic head of a local adoption agency, is actually running a
black-market baby ring behind the Tennessee Children's Home Society.
Stolen Babies (1993 TV Movie)
Source: nchgs.org / imdb.com