This guide surveys the intertwined cast of Lisa Wingate’s Before We Were Yours, a novel split between 1939 Tennessee and the present-day South Carolina Lowcountry. Two families—one born on a Mississippi River shantyboat, the other ensconced in political privilege—are bound by stolen identities and a state-sanctioned adoption scandal. Through their converging stories, the book exposes how memory, love, and truth persist across decades.
Main Characters
Rill Foss (May Crandall)
Rill Foss is the twelve-year-old captain-in-spirit of her family’s shantyboat, thrust into guardianship when her parents are taken and she and her four younger siblings are seized by the Tennessee Children’s Home Society. Terrified but unyielding, she fights to keep the Foss children together within a system orchestrated by Georgia Tann that exists to erase who they are. In the present, she lives under the adopted name May Crandall, a tight-lipped nursing-home resident whose wary connection with Avery Stafford rekindles long-buried memories. Rill’s journey runs from fierce childhood protector to an old woman learning to embrace the truth; it culminates in a fragile, healing reunion with her sister Judy (Fern) and the reclamation of her identity.
Avery Stafford
Avery Stafford is a poised federal prosecutor and heir apparent to a South Carolina political dynasty, home to support her ailing senator father and to shore up the family’s public image. A chance meeting with May Crandall jolts her from the scripted future she shares with her fiancé, Elliot, and leads her into a labyrinth of sealed records, whispered names, and her grandmother’s fractured memories. As Avery doggedly unravels what the Staffords chose not to see, she begins to challenge her own ambitions and loyalties, ultimately choosing transparency over optics. Her arc is a contemporary mirror of the novel’s pursuit of truth, embodying the Search for Identity and Truth at the heart of the book.
Georgia Tann
Georgia Tann—a real historical figure rendered with chilling clarity—is the novel’s central antagonist and the architect of a lucrative black-market adoption ring masquerading as reform. As head of the Memphis branch of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, she uses coercion, forged papers, and polished philanthropy to separate children from poor families and sell them to the wealthy. Her influence filters through enforcers like Mrs. Murphy, ensuring complicity and silence. Unrepentant and immovable, Tann is less a character who changes than a corrupt system given a face, epitomizing the Corruption of Power and Exploitation of the Vulnerable.
Supporting Characters
Judy Stafford (Fern Foss)
Judy Stafford—once Fern Foss—bridges the Foss and Stafford lineages: a tender child devoted to Rill who grows into a sharp, unconventional matriarch. Her dementia loosens the lid on a lifetime of secrecy, offering Avery cryptic clues about “Arcadia” that point back to a stolen past. Judy’s life is defined by love and concealment, making her the quiet center of the novel’s reckoning with Secrets and Their Consequences.
Queenie Foss
Queenie Foss is the musical, nurturing mother whose difficult labor with twins triggers the family’s separation and tragedy. Her absence becomes a haunting presence in Rill’s memories—proof of a life where joy and abundance existed before the Home. Reported to have died of “blood poisoning,” she embodies the story’s lost innocence and enduring maternal love.
Briny Foss
Briny Foss, a proud river man and storyteller, rules the Arcadia with grit and tenderness. After losing Queenie and having his children stolen, he crumples under grief and drink, severing himself from the river’s steady rhythms. His final, desperate act—cutting the Arcadia loose into a storm—carries the weight of a parent’s love warped by despair.
Camellia Foss
Camellia Foss, fiery and defiant, refuses to submit to the Home’s cruelty and pays the price for her resistance. She clashes with authority—and at times with Rill—yet her loyalty to the Foss name never wavers. Her disappearance into the system remains one of the story’s most harrowing unknowns.
Lark and Gabion Foss
Lark is gentle, sensitive, and eager to please; Gabion, still a toddler, is the family’s baby. Swept into adoption and separated from their sisters, they illustrate how the Home dismantled sibling bonds one child at a time. Their loss underscores Rill’s desperate promise to keep the family together.
Senator Wells Stafford
Senator Wells Stafford, Avery’s father, is an honorable public servant determined to protect both his constituents and the Stafford legacy while confronting a private cancer battle. He initially prioritizes discretion and optics, setting up a quiet conflict with Avery’s pursuit of transparency. Ultimately, love steadies his response as he chooses to support her search for the truth.
Elliot
Elliot, Avery’s fiancé and a careful architect of safe futures, represents the planned life Avery is expected to embrace. His instinct to minimize risk and protect the Stafford image puts him at odds with Avery’s investigation. Their parting marks Avery’s break from duty to destiny.
Minor Characters
- Silas: A loyal teenage friend to Rill who risks himself to help the Foss children and later confirms Queenie’s fate, briefly offering hope and agency within the 1939 timeline’s brutality.
- Zede: Briny’s steady river friend who rushes Queenie to the hospital and quietly looks after the children, emblematic of the community the river provides.
- Mrs. Murphy: A cruel boarding-home overseer and willing instrument of Tann’s enterprise, enforcing humiliation, separation, and fear.
- Trent Turner: A thoughtful Edisto Island realtor whose family history intersects with the Home; he becomes Avery’s ally and tender counterpoint to her scripted life.
- The Seviers: A wealthy couple who adopt Rill (as May) and Fern (as Beth), offering comfort and culture while inadvertently participating in Tann’s deception.
Character Relationships & Dynamics
The Foss family forms the novel’s emotional core: parents Briny and Queenie create a world of stories, music, and river rhythms aboard the Arcadia, while siblings Rill, Camellia, Lark, Fern, and Gabion orbit one another with fierce affection. Georgia Tann’s operation shatters this center—first by removing the children from their parents, then by separating the siblings through coerced adoptions—transforming Rill’s promise to keep them together into an almost impossible mission. Allies like Silas and Zede puncture the darkness with small acts of care, but the system’s power, channeled through enforcers like Mrs. Murphy, keeps the children isolated and vulnerable.
Across decades, the Stafford family represents the opposite pole: stability, influence, and an immaculate public image built in part on secrets. Judy, once Fern, stands at the hinge between worlds—loved and secure in her adopted life yet carrying the ache of a severed origin. Avery’s story presses these histories together: May Crandall’s wary recognition of Avery opens a path to the truth, and Avery’s insistence on answers strains her relationships with Wells and Elliot even as it forges new bonds—with May, with Judy, and with those harmed by the Home. The novel thus arranges its cast into two mirrored constellations—river family and political dynasty—drawn into alignment by a buried crime. Their alliances and conflicts crystallize around identity and accountability: who we claim as family, what we choose to protect, and the cost of bringing hidden histories into the light.