'We glued it back together': Sisters reunite after losing touch for 57 years
Gail Harding | CBC News | Posted: September 9, 2017 5:00 PM | Last Updated: September 9, 2017
No matter the reason for separation, reach out and reunite with your family, sisters urge
This summer has been an emotional one for two half-sisters who have been separated for 57 years.
Eileen Ferguson and Anna Scott live on opposite ends of the globe — one in Charlottetown, the other in New Zealand.
But last year, the two reconnected, and this summer Scott visited the Island to spend a month with her rediscovered sister.
"I hadn't seen her since she 18 months old," Ferguson said on CBC's Mainstreet.
Ferguson's mother died when she was two. The family coped as best they could, Ferguson said. Her father hired a housekeeper — who would eventually become his wife.
I hadn't seen her since she 18 months old. - Eileen Ferguson
The couple had children, and the family eventually emigrated to Toronto from England.
From Toronto, they moved to Newfoundland.
When Ferguson was 16, her family moved to New Zealand, but she said she didn't want to go and remained in Canada.
"Things were a little muddled up and they left eventually for New Zealand and we lost touch," she said.
Fast forward several decades when Ferguson started using Facebook to reconnect with her family. She found two other sisters before discovering Anna Scott, whom she calls Mindy, and the two slowly started chatting.
'We just hung on to each other'
The two continued to chat through Facebook and discovered they had a lot in common.
We just clicked, it was just amazing. - Anna Scott
After a while, Ferguson travelled to New Zealand to meet her half-sister and her family.
"When she came to the door I did my Mindy dance," Scott laughed before getting more serious. "We spent 57 years apart but it was like we had never spent a day apart. We just clicked, it was just amazing."
The reunion was emotional, she said.
"We just hung onto each other."
The trip took on more meaning as Ferguson started meeting relatives of her mother she discovered during her search for her family.
"My mother died when I was an infant and I had never known any of her family," Ferguson said.
A year after their initial meeting, Scott travelled to P.E.I. to meet Ferguson's family.
The sisters spent a month together and both said things just fell into place between them.
"I knew about her all my life and when we met she was just my big sister," Scott said.
'We've got our future'
The two sisters are now urging others who have lost touch with family, for whatever reason, to put differences aside and reunite.
"Sorry is a small word," Ferguson said.
"We made a pact that the past was the past and we couldn't change it, we couldn't do a thing about it. We've got our future. We glued it back together."
- MORE P.E.I. NEWS | Province limits Ontario bee imports in light of beetle infestations
- MORE P.E.I. NEWS | Know an outstanding volunteer? Resource council wants your nominations