[1] "Georgia's legacy has endured into the twenty-first century, and the vast majority of America's 6 million adoptees are still legally denied knowledge of their roots, even after they become adults. Many cant find their birth parents or learn potentially life-saving information about their family health histories." (xiv)
[2] [When speaking of why she wrote this book, and in regards to the stories of resilience of the surviving victims]
". . . I was often made inarticulate by such evidence of human resilience and common sense. To have transformed a personal tragedy into a vehicle for helping or informing others seemed noble: the recounting of such feats seemed sufficient reason for any book." (144)
[3] "In placing children with adoptive parents generally willing to treat them as children, not hired help, Georgia was a pioneer. Today's adoptive parents continue to treat adopted children as part of their families. It is one of Georgia's few positive legacies." (109-110)
[4] [A mother, on how she found the strength to go on after losing her son to Georgia Tann]
"Back home in Mississipi, Ann regretted her decision, becoming guant and depressed before finally discovering a way of coping with her loss. She pretended she hadn't lost Gordon. She kept him with her in her mind, watched him grow from infant to toddler to boy.
'By 1944 you were six and starting first grade, the very grade I was teaching,' she told Gordon, he wrote in an article for Reader's Digest. 'I couldn't wait for school to start. I saw you in every child's face. When I administered IQ tests, I hoped the boy with the highest score was you. When I comforted a crying, defeated child, I feared he might be you.
'You grew quickly that year,' she said. 'You were aggressive and vulnerable, cocky, and easily wounded. I learned you needed an atmosphere of tolerance and love. I tried to give it to you by giving it to all those children.
'It was an illusion, of course, but I have believed it, and when I said goodbye to that class in the spring, I felt sick with guilt. It was as if I was abandoning you for the second time.
'Then, following winter, I learned the third grade teacher was retiring. I immediately petitioned the school board for a transfer, and I got it. I would be your teacher again, this time, when you were eight.
'That year, as I watched you mature, I was proud you were becoming your own person, and I felt selfish for trying to hold on to you. At the end of the year, I stopped imagining you were with me. But I always wanted you back. I prayed I that one day I would meet you as a man...'
'I just sat there, immobilised by my own emotions,' Gordon told me. 'Slowly, she held out her arms and, for the first time in thirty-seven years, we touched.'" (141)
[5] "If knowledge of the long-buried story of Georgia Tann teaches us anything, it is the importance of ridding adoption of lies and secrets. Until we do, she and her imitators will continue to corrupt adoption." (246)
4.5/5 Barbara Bisantz Raymond is a masterful historian who has uncovered truth regarding Georgia Tann. The subject matter is a tough, sickening pill to swallow, and she is honest about how difficult this was to write, and how depressing it was to research. She lays the facts out, has stories and pictures from survivors, and describes modern adoption policies. It seemed to abruptly end, I do think it would have been good to tie back into the stories of the victims themselves at that point. But I couldn't put this book down, and applaud Ms. Raymond for tackling such a difficult subject.
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