For some Facebook.com is just a way to make or stay in contact
with friends. For Hollister resident Sandy Stein, 67, it was a tool
to find her long-lost siblings.
For some Facebook.com is just a way to make or stay in contact with friends. For Hollister resident Sandy Stein, 67, it was a tool to find her long-lost siblings.
Separated from her brother and sister for nearly 40 years after moving to California from New York, Sandy Stein quickly found her siblings after being persuaded to join Facebook by her daughter Debbie Bruciati.
“I told her, ‘You need to get a Facebook to see pictures of my kids’ so I didn’t have to keep sending her pictures,” Bruciati said.
It was not too long after she joined that she found her brother after searching for his name. But she couldn’t find the courage to talk to him.
“She was afraid,” Bruciati said. “My mom hadn’t seen her brother in a really long time.”
Eventually in February, she received an “add friend” message from him and the two finally reconnected. From there, she connected with her sister and, within a few months, a reunion was scheduled.
“For someone who is computer illiterate, it’s amazing they got together as a family after all this time,” Bruciati said. “Now they are trying to make up of all the time.”
Now living in Arizona, the 75-year-old Stan Stein, as well as sister Diane, who lives in Pennsylvania, visited for a pair of days last week and reunited the family for the first time in 40 years.
The reunion gathered 16 people from the extended family including each sibling’s sons and daughters, Bruciati said.
The family barbecued and “caught up on life,” Bruciati said.
“I sat next to my uncle Stan, who I hadn’t seen in a long time, and he had some really funny stories,” Bruciati said. “It was scary – but it was fun.”
Bruciati said it was the look on her mom’s face that made it a special occasion.
“Just seeing her face – she had a rough life – it was great to see her so happy,” Bruciati said.
And the reunion won’t be the last. Sandy is already planning a trip to Arizona to spend more time with her brother.
And the whole reunion was because of Facebook, Bruciati said.
“People can just find people so easy today,” she said. “You just can’t get away because of the computer.”
