My mother, Evelyn Louise Taphorn, was born in Chicago, IL, on 4 Nov 1927, the daughter of Clemons Henry Taphorn and Edna Louise Curtis. She had three siblings – Mary Elizabeth who was born in 1923 in Nashville, TN, and died of pneumonia in 1928, Lillian Christine, born in 1925 in Nashville and Clemons Henry Jr
who was born in 1929 in Nashville. In August of 1930, Mother and Clemons Jr were surrendered by their father and by Court Decree to the now infamous Tennessee Children’s Home Society* in Nashville, TN. Her sister, Lillian, was placed directly into the custody of Ada Christine Curtis Mosley, Edna’s sister, in Nashville. Lillian and her Aunt Ada were very close, perhaps related to the fact that Lillian was given the middle name Christine in Ada’s honor.
On 11 June 1932, mother was adopted by Wylie Ernest and Goldie May Dedmon Vawter of Jackson, TN. She resided on Hillcrest Cr and then on Cartmell St in Jackson until her marriage in July of 1948, at age 20, to Frank Thomas Flew, then age 40. Mother lived out her life in Jackson where she had a long career as a licensed practical nurse. In the 1950s she wrote several times to the Tennessee Children’s Home Society seeking her brother. She was repeatedly denied any information based on the fact that his adoptive parents did not wish for him to know of his adoption.
Over the years, mother hired investigators to help find her family with no results. In 1957, knowing her connection to the Nashville area, she wrote a letter to the now defunct Nashville Banner newspaper. Ada Christine Curtis Mosely (Aunt Ada) saw the letter and was put in touch with mother through the Banner. From Aunt
Ada, mother learned that her mother had remarried and lived in Buffalo, NY. Her sister, Lillian, now married, was living in Detroit, MI, but she did not know the address. Of her brother, Clemons Jr, nothing was known. For reasons I do not know, mother either did not pursue the leads on her mother and sister or they no longer lived where Aunt Ada had indicated. Of her brother, she had heard rumor, never confirmed, that he had been adopted by a fireman and moved to Florida. Mother was never able to make contact with any of her parents or siblings.
In 1996, the Tennessee Code Annotated was modified to allow access to all records of both adoptees and their siblings. I must assume that mother was not aware of this since she did not make another attempt prior to her passing in 2004. Unfortunately, the law allows only siblings and lineal descendants to access the records thus excluding us from access to Uncle Clemons Jr’s records.
In 2014, I purchased a DNA kit from Ancestry.com and, shortly after, my sister,
Cissy Flew Nichols, submitted a DNA sample to Ancestry.com. We discussed on several occasions that our only opportunity to find our Clemons Jr family was through DNA. In August of 2018, Cissy noticed that the entry of M. P. in her DNA Matches list showed a high probability that she was a 2nd or 3rd cousin. Her second attempt to contact her resulted in a reply from her father, Rob. From Rob, Cissy learned that his father, Fred C. Thompson, was born in Nashville in 1929 and that he had been adopted by Eugene and Virginia Thompson of Old Hickory, TN, in 1930. In 1951 
he married Wilma Pearl Robison of Pulaski, TN. He served in the USMC in the 1950s. Fred disappeared in the mid-While Rob had no additional details of his father’s adoption, his birth year in Nashville along with the DNA evidence is strong enough to conclude that Rob’s father was, in fact, born Clemons Henry Taphorn Jr, mother’s long lost brother!
As it turns out, M. P. is Rob’s teenage daughter, Mariah, is our first cousin once removed. She had recently begun a new job and, as she later told us, “I had money to spend”. She had wondered where she had acquired her curly hair and so decided to take a DNA test. Once again serendipity stepped in and answered a question that, until then, was unanswerable.
On Easter Sunday, 21 Apr 2019, Cissy and I, along with our brother John, gathered in Washington, MO, to unite with our family that, up until just a few months before, we did not even know existed. The addition of fifteen new family members almost doubles our known number of living relatives. We shared what we knew of the Taphorn and Curtis lines including pictures. This was the first time they had seen photos of Fred’s biological ancestors. We felt honored to share this with them and look forward to re-
*Tennessee Children’s Home Society – The Tennessee Children’s Home Society was charted in the state of Tennessee in 1897 and operated in the first half of the 20th century. In 1941, they lost their charter due to questionable practices. In 1950 an investigation revealed that TCHS was a front for a black market adoption ring. The TCHS scandal has been the subject of several books, TV shows and, in 1991, a 60 Minutes report. For more information, read the Wikipedia article.