After Georgia Tann had taken my mom away from her mother and sent my mom almost 1,500 miles away, she tried to reassure my grandmother (who never intended to lose custody of my mom) that it was all for the good (and judging by some truly horrific stories about Georgia Tann’s rule over children, my mom was lucky she was removed quickly and ended up with decent people to raise her).
On August 30, 1937, Georgia Tann wrote to my grandmother – “The baby has been placed in a lovely home where she will have every care and much love. Any time you wish to hear from her, we will be glad to write you.”
My grandmother disappears from the adoption file after she received that letter. After being pressured into signing the surrender papers (either sign these or we’ll ask Juvenile Court Judge Camille Kelley to declare you an unfit mother), she tried to undo the damage. Telephoning the Tennessee Children’s Home office and speaking to Helen Rose, she said “I heard from my friend in New Orleans. She said she will take me and the baby. I need to come and get her so we can leave.”
They had a paying repeat customer in my adoptive grandmother, there was no way they were going to let my mom go back to her mother, no matter what. They told her that she was to bring the names and addresses of her friends to their office. They could not let her recover custody of my mom until they investigated the people who would help them first.
My grandmother’s name was Elizabeth Lou but when she had my mom she went by Lizzie Lou. In letters to Georgia Tann and in the divorce papers filed by my mom’s father, she is shown as Elizabeth. But when she died, she had Lizzie Lou put on her gravestone. I believe she waited all of her life for my mom to be reunited with her. She had no other children.
Missing Mom 