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 organizations that supported its mission of placing orphaned and unwanted children in the homes of those seeking to adopt. Tann's place in Memphis Society and her connections throughout the community helped her build a strong network of supporters, including Tennessee legislators, socially prominent families and Camille Kelley, 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 claiming 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 investigation.
Read more about this topic: Tennessee Children's Home Society
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