Barbara Latkowski
Caledonia Courier
It was a dream come true for June Hanson.
Last year, at home in Fort St. James where she grew up, the phone rang.
It was a call that changed her life forever.
“I picked up the phone, and I heard a voice that I didn’t recognize. The voice said it’s me. It’s your brother Craig,” Hanson said.
“I cried and I cried. I couldn’t believe it.”
It was 60 years ago that Hanson remembers her mother expecting another child.
“It was just me and my brother. We knew our mother was pregnant but we just thought that she had miscarried.”
But this wasn’t the case.
Hanson’s mother was raising her children on her own and she had given the child up for adoption.
Neither Hanson or her brother ever questioned what had happened.
But last year, everything changed when Hanson received the call that changed her life for good.
“I was in shock. After all this time, it’s unbelievable,” Hanson said.
Craig, now 60-years-old, grew up in Salmon Arm, British Columbia.
And just recently, he made the visit to Fort St. James to meet with his sister for the very first time.
“There he was. He came to see me and we just hugged. We visited our parents in the cemetery. We just sat there together. He kept touching the headstones saying, my mom and dad.”
The two just recently celebrated Hanson’s 73rd birthday in June.
She has been married to her husband Bob for 36 years. She is a mother, grandmother and now a sister to a brother that she never knew she had.
“Now that he’s been here, I am going to visit him in Salmon Arm,” Hanson said.
“It’s amazing after all these years. To know you have a brother, this has changed my life.”