Nova Scotia woman prepared to meet sister after nearly 50 years apart

A Nova Scotia woman is getting ready to meet her older sister after being separated from her for almost 50 years.

Eva Rushton was just an infant when she was separated from her older sister Sandra and sent to a foster home.

It wasn’t until she was old enough to understand that Child Services told her about her long-lost sibling, although her whereabouts were unknown at the time.

As Rushton got older, she began to wonder where her sister was.

“There was always this void of not actually having any blood family,” she said. Now 50 years old, she is a firefighter living in Elmsvale, N.S..

At 18, Rushton began searching phone books and spreading the word. Eventually she began using internet search engines, but in 20 years of looking nothing came up.

“I had been shuffled through so many foster homes it was hard for Sandra to locate me,” she said. “I figured Sandra would have married and so her last name wouldn’t be Rushton, which made it very difficult.”

Then in February, Rushton decided to try something else.

She created an account on Facebook called ‘Missing Sister Rushton”, where she posted a graduation picture of her sister given to her by Children’s Aid and put down what little information she had about her missing sibling.

In a matter of days she received dozens of responses, and after it had been shared more than 13,000 times, she finally made contact.

“I said, I’m not sure that you’re the right person that I’m looking for, but I believe that you’re my sister,” Rushton said. “And sure enough, it was”.

Her sister, Sandra Barron, had been living in Ontario, where she was working as a nurse and married with a son.

“I was shocked,” said Barron, “I guess you kind of accept things for awhile … and you just thought it wasn’t going to happen.”

Rushton and her sister are now planning to meet in person for the first time in 48 years.

Barron is flying into Halifax next weekend to spend some time with her younger sister she thought she would never see again.

“I’ll probably be stunned and speechless,” she said. “And then I’ll give her a big hug.”