B.C. woman finds long-lost niece more than 45 years after sister’s disappearance

A B.C. woman has been searching for her missing sister and the niece she never met for more than 45 years.

While she holds out hope that she will someday find her sister, she is grateful to have finally met her niece.

“It’s like a piece of my family has come back,” Sandy Barnet said. “My sister’s daughter.”

Barnet last saw her sister, Helen Claire Frost, in 1970 when the two shared an apartment in Prince George.

For Frost, those were difficult days. In May of that year, the teenager had given birth to a baby girl, but they wouldn’t be together long.

“She had a welfare worker and they went to the hospital and talked her into giving the baby up for adoption,” Barnet said, adding that her sister was heartbroken.

Five months after giving up her daughter, 17-year-old Frost left her apartment to go for a walk, but never returned.

WATCH: B.C. woman searches for sister

Barnet and friends began searching along the stretch of road now known as the Highway of Tears.

“This guy and I did go searching and he found out she had hitchhiked from the Husky in Prince George, heading south. A truck driver told him that,” she said.

There had been no real progress in the story until Michelle Johnston recently decided it was time to find her birth mother.

She found her mother’s name and then began an online search, eventually coming across a Facebook page Barnet created to promote the ongoing search for her sister and niece.

“I contacted her and said, ‘Yeah, I think I’m your sister’s daughter.'”

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After decades apart, the two finally met this weekend.

“It was very emotional, for sure, because it’s something that we’ve hoped for,” family friend Anne Gavin said.

“Helen is a missing link for us and we’re not going to give up. We’re going to keep going. Now we have added incentive to keep going.”

Barnet said she still plans to keep on searching.

“We always had two people to look for, two family members, and now we still have one to look for. But now we’re more of a united front.”

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For Michelle and Sandy, there is now lots of catching up to do.

“It’s thrilling,” Barnet said.

“Just wonderful,” Johnston added. “I love her.”