Before and After

by Judy Christie

  A fresh blessing for her are new friendships with the TCHS adoptees with whom she’s been communicating via email. Within the next twenty-four hours, she’ll meet some of them in person. “Even across the miles that separate us, there’s an unexplainable sense of sisterhood,” she says, “and a strange sense of comfort at no longer feeling like ‘the only one.’ ”

  OPEN AND CLOSED

  Not everyone is as prepared as Connie to talk about their life experiences and lessons learned. This is a truth I’ve discovered in the weeks before our reunion weekend.

  In the course of the many phone interviews and the hastily arranged visits I’ve undertaken during the past couple of months, I’ve had lovely meetings with people who decided, after privately opening the book of their lives to me, that they’d just as soon not make their stories public.

  I’ve chatted with a smart, witty woman in her seventies and her elegant, soft-spoken adoptive mother, who’s more than one hundred years old. The mother described loving her infant daughter from the first time she laid eyes on her, but she is not eager to talk much more about the adoption. Although the daughter has searched and found some answers to her biological family background, there’s a lifetime of water under that bridge. Too many people are involved, too many lives affected. It’s all better kept among family.

  Others share snippets of information. A son reads Before We Were Yours and reaches out to tell us that his mother, who was not Jewish, was sent from TCHS to a Jewish couple in the Midwest. When her siblings located her, decades later, he encouraged her to connect with them and flew home for the celebration. Walking into the house where he grew up, he thought he saw his mother in the hall, her back to him. When she turned, he was not looking at his mother. He was seeing his aunt, his mother’s birth sister. Life had changed. But he’s a busy executive at a nonprofit organization and ultimately does not wish to tell his story publicly.

  At times, adult children of adoptees are the ones reopening the family history book, seeking answers. Two daughters have signed up to bring fathers to the reunion because they want to know more. And they believe that the journey will help their dads. Two more talk to me about their fathers’ stories over the phone. Another man calls me to discuss his mother’s past.

  Open book. Closed book. Seeking truth is an individual choice, one that everyone, adopted or not, makes at some point in their lives. Each of us creates our own life story, the one we tell ourselves and others. Or choose not to tell.

  As I hustle to leave for our first official reunion event—the Friday afternoon public book talk hosted by Kirby Pines Retirement Community—I realize that this is what we’re doing this weekend: writing a story in which we have no idea how each chapter will fit. The results may well be mixed. With celebration there may also come barriers, and a reluctance to dig deeper, toward the truth.

  When we meet up in the lobby of the retirement community, Lisa and I give each other a brief pep talk, and then we stride up the gorgeous spiral staircase to the second floor and into the large and well-appointed auditorium. The room is packed with Kirby Pines residents, members of the public, and folks with connections to TCHS. Because of our epic fail on planning a meet-and-greet reunion event, we have no way of knowing who’s who. We happily spot Connie coming in with two other core group members. That’s three of them, at least.

  Then I see Lillian, whom I interviewed soon after arriving in Memphis. I give her a hug and have the pleasure of introducing Lisa to her.

  Four. That’s four of them who can get to know one another, anyway.

  Why didn’t we think to reserve a row for TCHS attendees up front, to be sure they could get a seat?

  Too late now.

  My cousin Cindy is snapping pictures everywhere; her husband, Doug, is fastening a camera on a tripod. My husband, Paul, and Lisa’s husband, Sam, are on hand as well, serving this weekend as drivers, waiters, and unofficial jacks-of-all-trades.

  The room buzzes with anticipation…or is that just our nerves?

  * * *

  —

  As Lisa speaks from the front, I scan the crowd, trying to pick out adoptee James Sanders and his wife and daughter. We are to sit down for an interview after this event, then join other adoptees for dinner in the Kirby Pines cafeteria.

  Did their flight from Utah make it?

  I have no way of knowing. He could, like every other TCHS adoptee, be any face in the crowd.

  CHAPTER 13

  HANDED OFF IN A TRAIN STATION

  “We found both sides of my family. I’m meeting them Sunday and Monday.”

  IN APRIL 1944, MARJORIE HABLET, twenty-two and unmarried, travels from Arkansas to Memphis to give birth to a premature boy.

  He’s tiny, just four pounds.

  She favors her son with a name that signifies strength, importance. Marcus Walter, after the baby’s father and her brother. She has, at least in that moment, intentions for this infant. Hopes.

  Yet little Marcus winds up in the hands of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society. Only a month old, he is transported from Tennessee to California and dropped into the eager arms of his new parents at three A.M. at Grand Central Station in Los Angeles.

  Iris and Charlie Sanders are neighbors of famous Hollywood cowboy Smiley Burnette, who told the eager couple about adopting children from TCHS. As soon as baby Marcus is handed off, the female escort from the orphanage vanishes.

  James

  ON A THURSDAY IN JUNE, James Sanders boards a plane to fly from warm, dry Salt Lake City to warmer, humid Memphis. His wife and daughter stay close by his side, both excited about the trip.

  But James, seventy-four when he makes his return sojourn to Memphis, is not sure he wants to be back here in this city he has not visited since birth. He’s about to open a door that can’t be closed again. No telling what might be on the other side. When they arrive, an Uber driver picks them up. It’s after midnight.

  “You guys are sure coming in late,” the driver remarks. “What are you here for?”

  They chuckle. “Long story short?” James quips.

  But he does not have a quick reply. How can one easily explain a suspicious adoption, a lifetime of wondering, a search that has led to mounds of information on Georgia Tann and TCHS, and a planned blood-family meeting—one he thought he might never have?

  His daughter, Brigette, has located James’s biological family. On this trip to attend the TCHS reunion, he will not only meet other survivors, he will travel to meet relatives who live just over the Mississippi border from Memphis. He hopes to connect with other family members near Little Rock, Arkansas. He would be highly pleased to meet his half brothers, although they have not responded to inquiries. He has lunch plans with his birth mother’s step-grandchildren, adults with memories of the mama he never knew.

  The plans thrill him but also have him slightly worked up. Will these meetings occur? What will the mood of his “new” family be? Will their gathering be awkward? Comfortable? Will he be welcomed or held at arm’s length?

  These upcoming family meetings are as hard to predict as it is for Lisa and me to envision this weekend’s gathering. There are way too many unknowns.

  The Sanders family heard about this event only a few weeks ago, after Brigette reached out to Lisa about her father’s story and the connection she felt to the families in Before We Were Yours. Since then, they’ve booked flights, made hotel reservations, contacted the blood relatives Brigette found, planned get-togethers, and traveled halfway across the country.

  After a too-short night’s sleep, they join the crowd in the auditorium of Kirby Pines to attend the first event on the schedule, a book talk. They’ve been told that other adoptees and family members will be there, and in the sea of faces, they wonder who was once traded off by Tann. Or who has personal memories of the scandal. This is Memphis, after all. The scandal was front-
page news here. It was also back-room gossip.

  As the book talk begins, Lisa shares the history of the scandal that inspired her novel. She speaks about coming across the true story by accident, about wanting to know more, needing to know more, wondering why she’d never heard of Georgia Tann.

  She explains about doing research, about contemplating how to tell the story as a novel. Although the scandal has, over the years, received coverage on talk shows, in news stories, and in a handful of nonfiction books, she says, “I realized that what had not been told were the stories of these ordinary children. What was it like to be taken from your life, with no explanation, and dropped into another one?”

  She pauses to look out over the crowd for a moment, then reads from the novel: “The river is ours. It is only ours.” Lisa looks up at her audience. “The characters are always real in my head. While writing these stories, I traveled through the journey with these kids. I wanted their story to reflect the stories of the real-life survivors.” She shares information about this weekend’s planned reunion and thanks Kirby Pines for inviting adoptees to have dinner together tonight in their dining room—an invaluable get-to-know-you opportunity for the TCHS group, people who’ve met long-distance, if at all.

  Although Lisa is the only scheduled speaker this afternoon, she whets an appetite for more. A few of the adoptees and family members have spoken up from their chairs…and the crowd’s interest is piqued. When hostess Janice announces a break during the Q&A so that the punch and cookies at the back of the room will not go untasted, she invites the TCHS adoptees to move up front and join in. Perhaps they’d like to share a bit of their own stories, answer questions, give their thoughts?

  The moment isn’t planned, but the invitation is open. It hangs in the air, expectant. An opportunity.

  A reserved and generally quiet man, James has seated himself near the back of the auditorium with his wife and daughter. Brigette doesn’t think he’ll want to speak.

  When the time comes, though, James stands and haltingly makes his way to the front, a shy look on his face. His wife of forty-seven years, Millie, a lovely woman with a happy smile, stands, too. Brigette, in her late thirties, walks up the aisle, a few steps behind her father, in case she’s needed, then takes a seat to the side with her mother.

  James sits with other adoptees behind a folding table and weeps as he shares his history with the audience, his soft voice even quieter than usual as he says, “My parents paid twelve hundred dollars.”

  His is an unlikely Hollywood story, filled with the twists and turns of an action movie, the pathos of a drama, and the love story of a romance. He is a most appealing character—gentle, positive, and insightful, with a family that adores him in a way that shows he is a very good father. That’s part of the reason he’s here. He hesitated at first about coming. Brigette told him he needed to.

  “I just didn’t want to come back here, but Brigette insisted,” he quips with a laugh. “When Brigette tells you to do something, you have to do it.”

  His heartfelt words and his evident love for his daughter delight the audience. After he and the other adoptees finish telling their stories—such an unexpected and emotional scene—James chats with his new fans. Then, escaping the chaos of the crowded room, he sinks onto a sofa in a well-appointed reception area, so that he and I can visit one-on-one.

  We are all still surprised by the stories that were just offered up by the adoptees. James, his eyes moist behind his glasses, seems a bit overwhelmed—or maybe I am the one overwhelmed. We chat for a few minutes to regain our bearings. Wife Millie sits nearby, content to listen and give moral support. Brigette, her brown hair brushing against her shoulders, holds a large notebook of materials she has gathered through the years. She is the keeper of the records but encourages her dad to tell the story.

  * * *

  —

  THE DATE IS MAY 16, 1944, when Marcus, still a small thing, arrives in California at the home of his new parents. His adoptive dad, Charlie, is a procurement officer for the Navy, and his mother, Iris, is a social worker. They give him another strong name: James, with the middle name of Glennan, in honor of the man who will become the first administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This baby is wanted, and his life seems promising.

  Baby James. It turns out he shares his birth name with a newly discovered cousin but is only now piecing together the story of his heritage.

  But the golden California dream does not materialize for James and his adoptive parents.

  First, a foreboding typewritten letter from Tann, addressed to Iris and Charlie, arrives in January 1945. The letter hints at the scandal that James’s new parents know nothing of.

  “We are taking this opportunity to advise you that we are anticipating some changes in our Tennessee Adoption laws, which will no doubt go into effect after the adjournment of our Legislature, now in session,” it reads. “We feel that it might be advisable for those with children in their homes not yet adopted to complete these adoptions at an early date.”

  The letter then outlines options for a worker to visit and help finalize the adoption, as long as James’s parents are “fully satisfied that the child now in your home is the one for you,” with payment to be made directly to Tann. “Kindly let us hear from you immediately, via AIR MAIL, if you wish to have our worker see you as outlined above, making your check payable to Miss Georgia Tann and mark same ‘For transportation and court costs.’ ”

  Adoption stress mixes with home problems. When the war ends, Charlie takes a Navy position in the Oakland area, but Iris does not want to move from Southern California. Charlie travels back and forth for a while; when James is about three, however, he hears his parents arguing. After that, his mother tells him his dad has left—and that he is adopted.

  His parents soon divorce, leaving him once again without a father. “It’s a very interesting thing, not having a dad,” James says.

  The small ranch home where James and his mother live has two extra bedrooms, and Iris takes in veterans being treated at a nearby hospital. At night, James sometimes hears them screaming—because, his mother explains, of injuries they suffered in the war.

  On the occasions when his adoptive mother cannot take care of him, her mother steps in. “I had a wonderful, wonderful grandmother…She was just an amazing woman.” An example of how one person can make such a difference in a life, she becomes his biggest supporter and takes him regularly to the Methodist church, where her elderly friends love him. “Those ladies took good care of me.” Affection flows in his words. “I never got whipped or spanked.” An avid baseball fan, his grandmother uses her love of the game to help him when he struggles with math as a youngster, walking with him to minor-league baseball games and teaching him arithmetic by counting the twelve blocks to and from the field. “In all honesty,” James says, “I was blessed.”

  Even so, a long period of relocating around California follows for James and his mother. They live in seventeen homes and he attends eight schools, never quite sure where he will be for his next grade. The character of Rill in Before We Were Yours reminds him of his eleven-year-old self. At that age, James had a seven-days-a-week paper route, serving forty-four houses. He made five dollars a month. The income was something steady in an often unstable world.

  When James is about twelve, Iris becomes an alcoholic. “I grew up in a bar in Pasadena, California,” he says. He is not joking. In a homemade video, he recalls his life at the tavern with his mother and eating his favorite supper—two hard-boiled eggs, Fritos, and an orange soda. Sometimes he falls asleep while his mother drinks. Many nights, he awakens in a stranger’s home with his mother, who is sobering up. He is not quite sure how they made it through those times, but he is reluctant to speak ill of Iris.

  He measures his words when he reflects on his life with his adoptive mot
her. His considerate spirit shines. “My mom, when she wasn’t drunk, was a very good mom. My mom loved me. My grandmother loved me.” His birth family, as far as he knew, had abandoned him. “I figured, Well, they didn’t want me, so here I am.”

  The chaotic childhood marks James, but it does not defeat him. If anything, it leaves him resourceful, determined, appreciative.

  In high school, he discovers pole vaulting and buys a piece of bamboo for fifty cents from a rug company for his first pole. His success at the sport improves his confidence and encourages him to stretch in other areas of his life, from making friends to taking harder classes.

  He chooses to attend Brigham Young University, in part because it is a school that doesn’t allow alcohol; while there, he is baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He then goes into the Army as a Special Forces medic in Vietnam. Upon his return, he is in the first physician’s assistant class at the University of Utah and has a long career in that field.

  Now retired, James is dealing with health issues from Vietnam, where he was exposed to Agent Orange. He has had two small strokes and triple-bypass surgery. He suffers from diabetes and had to have the toes on one foot amputated, so now he depends on a cane. The health problems have not, however, cooled his desire to solve the mysteries of his biological history. When he was in his thirties, about the age of his daughter, Brigette, now, he began to search. He is quick to emphasize, however, that his adoptive mother will always be his mom, and he stresses his love for Charlie and Iris with a soft but impassioned voice. They did not know anything about the Tann scandal before the news broke, or even for years afterward. Preoccupied with the chaos of their lives, they were oblivious.