Tennessee Children's Home Society

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Tennessee Children's Home Society was an orphanage operated in the state of Tennessee during the first half of the 20th Century, and is most often associated with its Memphis branch operator Georgia Tann as an organization involved with the kidnapping of children and their illegal adoptions. Tann died in 1950 before the State of Tennessee could release its findings on her activities. A story reported by 60 Minutes in 1991 renewed interest of Tann's black market adoptions, and the help she received from Shelby County Family Court Judge Camille Kelley.

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[edit] Questionable Practices

Prior to 1941, The Tennessee Children's Home Society and its head Georgia Tann were well respected in Memphis circles. The Society received community support from various organizations that supported its mission of placing orphaned and unwanted children in the homes of those people who were seeking to adopt. Tann's place in Memphis Society, and her connections throughout the community helped her to build a strong network of supporters, including Tennessee legislators, socially prominent families and Camille Kelly, the Shelby County Family Court Judge through which the Society's adoptions were finalized.

In 1941 the Society lost its endorsement from the Child Welfare League of America when it was discovered that Tann's organization routinely destroyed most of the paperwork associated with its child placements. Tann argued that since Tennessee adoptions were shielded by privacy laws the Society was not in violation of any practice. Still the Society remained unlicensed under Tennessee law, the Board claimed that the Society received its mandate directly from the Tennessee State Legislature.

Tann lived well - the Society covered her living expenses. However the public thought it odd that the head of a charitable organization that could barely balance its books was chauffeured about in expensive Packard limousines.

Throughout the 1940s questions began to build about the operation of the Society and its closed Board of Trustees. By 1950 families that had used the Society to adopt children, along with those who had lost their children while in the Society's temporary custody finally gained the attention of State authorities, who placed the operation under State investigation.

[edit] State Findings

Following a State of Tennessee investigation during 1950, it was revealed that Miss Tann had arranged for thousands of adoptions under questionable means.

State investigators also discovered that the Society was a front for a broad black market adoption ring, headed by Tann. They also found record irregularities and secret bank accounts. In some cases Tann skimmed off as much as 80% to 90% of the adoption fees when children were placed out of state. Officials also found that Judge Kelly had railroaded through hundreds of adoptions without following state laws. Kelly also received payments from Tann for her assistance. Tann died in the fall of 1950 and Kelley announced the same year that after twenty years on the bench that she would retire. Kelly was not prosecuted for her role in the scandal, and died in 1955.

Adoptive parents soon discovered that the biographies and child histories supplied by Tann were false. It was also disclosed that Tann obtained babies from State Hospital patients, and hid the information from adoptive parents.

Parents of children that disappeared from the Tennessee Children's Home Society under temporary custody had been adopted to other families and that Tann destroyed the records.

It was also revealed that Tann also worked in collusion with local area doctors who informed the home of unwed mothers - Tann would take the new borns under the pretext of getting them hospital care, and would return to tell the recovering mothers that the children had died and that their bodies had been buried immediately in the name of compassion.

[edit] Outcomes

The Georgia Tann/Tennessee Children's Home Society scandal resulted in adoption reform [1] laws in Tennessee in 1951. Adults who come forward with evidence that Tann handled the adoption have open access to records which may have involved their adoptions.

In 1991, 60 Minutes reported on the scandal, and the efforts of both adoptees to find their birth mothers and birth mothers and fathers who were seeking their now grown children.

The scandal also reinvigorated the efforts to open adoption records by both birth mothers and adoptees.

Notable personalities who used Tann's services included actress Joan Crawford (daughters Christina Crawford, and twins Cathy and Cynthia [2]] were adopted through the agency. June Allyson and husband Dick Powell also used the Memphis based home for adopting a child. It was also stated in his biography that professional wrestling great Ric Flair was a victim of the Society, illegally removed from his birth mother.

The scandal was also the subject of two made for television films:

The Tennessee Children's Home Society was closed in the 1950s, and is not to be confused with the Tennessee Children's Home, which is accredited by the state of Tennessee. The Children's Home has no legacy connection with Georgia Tann or the Society which she operated.

[edit] Sources

  • Barbara Raymond. Baby Thief, The: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption.2007. 320p. Carroll & Graf.
  • PROFILE: Mary Margulis St. Louis Post - Dispatch St. Louis, Mo.: May 10, 1993. pg. 1 Section: EVERYDAY MAGAZINE
  • Report to Governor Gordon Browning on Shelby County Branch, Tennessee Children's Home Society 1951, [Nashville] : State of Tennessee, Dept. of Public Welfare
  • of Tennessee, Adoption Records Access Law
  • Tennessee Black Market Adoption Information