Elwood to honor victims of Tennessee Children’s Home Society

[me b zola]

Elwood to honor victims of Tennessee Children’s Home Society

By TOM CHARLIER - Associated Press
Sunday, September 27, 2015

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The burials are of babies who passed away in the care of the infamous Tennessee Children’s Home Society, where operator Georgia Tann ran a highly organized and lucrative baby-selling network from 1923 until her death in 1950. Many of the children were stolen, usually from poor, uneducated single mothers, and sold to wealthy people across the nation, including movie stars Dick Powell, June Allyson and Joan Crawford.

Children who were sick or otherwise unmarketable often were allowed to die of malnutrition, neglect or abuse. Many simply disappeared.

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At Elmwood, officials are raising funds to buy a monument to honor the 19 victims buried there and “all of the hundreds who died under the cold, hard hand of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society,” as the inscription will read. The 64-inch-tall, 48-inch-wide monument is being offered by Crone Monument Co. at the heavily discounted price of $13,075, McCollum said.

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Operating out of a large house at 1556 Poplar, Tann systematically sought out babies delivered by poor and desperate mothers, often approaching them while they still were groggy from anesthesia. She manipulated them into signing papers that ostensibly authorized her to take and care for the babies temporarily. Instead, the mothers never saw the babies again.

Tann’s scheme was abetted by the bribes she paid to nurses, judges and others, according to numerous accounts, but she was a powerful figure in her own right. Widely viewed as a beneficent social worker, she enjoyed the protection of longtime Memphis political boss E.H. Crump and could count on sheriff’s deputies to help round up children from poor people’s homes.

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Many of the 5,000 or more children sold through the scheme spent decades trying to track down their relatives, and researchers and authors would later document Tann’s lasting impact on adoption in America.

~more @ link~

http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/27/elwood-to-honor-victims-of-tennessee-childrens-hom/

*Apologies for the link but the story was written by an AP reporter


Georgia Tann is the monster responsible for the changes in the law that seal away adoptee's birth certificates and strips us of our names, history, and natural families. Tann didn't give one wit about "privacy" for the natural mother as she stole babies and the changing of the names was a way for her to cover her tracks and to make the stolen babies more more marketable. Tann was born to a wealthy family and had ties to powerful people and she used that to legalize her monstrous acts.

Adoptees demand full access to our own birth certificates and any documents concerning us. Please take the time to learn the history of modern adoption in the US, especially if you have come to repeat the lies told by the billion dollar adoption industry in regards to our rights.

If you have loved ones who are adopted, please support them by supporting equal rights for adoptees.

[me b zola]

1. Because facts matter

Last edited Thu Oct 1, 2015, 04:18 PM - Edit history (1)

[me b zola]

2. .

[StevieM]

3. Excellent post. A monument to honor Georgia Tann's victims is long overdue.

I hate that our adoption laws were largely written by this horrible woman. And I hate that she died before being brought to justice for her crimes.

Do you know Joe Soll? Joe was a black market baby. He is very prominent in the adoption reform community. He didn't find his natural family until recently, when he was in his early 70s, and his natural mother had already died. But for years they were looking for each other, while being stymied by state laws.

In Joe's case his original birth certificate was a fraud. Bessie Bernard, the woman who sold him, made sure he was untraceable. He was able to get his OBC by suing New York, on the basis of having been sold. The courts (on appeal) ruled in his favor. Eventually, he was able to find his half-brother and cousins by using a DNA data base.