Nearly 70 years ago, a teen went missing in Montreal. Her family is still looking for her
CBC
Vera Hastie has held onto her missing big sister's old purse, prayer book and jewelry for nearly 70 years.
Two months after the Döderlein family arrived in Quebec from Germany in September 1954, Hastie's 14-year-old sister Rosemarie went to get bread from the bakery and never came back.
Hours later, when Rosemarie still hadn't returned from the bakery just a couple of blocks away from their home in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, her father went looking for her. The baker told him he had never seen the girl.
It was as if she had vanished.
The family started a search which has never stopped.
"One time I came home, and I put my head in my mother's lap, and I just cried, cried, cried. 'Where's my sister? I miss my buddy, my pal,'" said Hastie, who was 11 at the time.
The family had several theories of what could have happened to the teen — black market adoption, child or sex trafficking, kidnapping — but never got answers.
Every single night, the family would walk around the neighbourhood, looking for Rosemarie.
Thinking she might have ended up in the United States, Hastie would stop at every phone booth on her travels and write "Rosemarie, call this number" in the hopes her sister would see.
Now 79, Hastie was encouraged by her daughter, Christa, to take up the search again using new technology like DNA identification and artificial intelligence.
They pored over newspaper clippings and obituaries, researched what was happening in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce back in 1954, and called the families of those with the same name as Rosemarie hoping to find answers. But they found nothing.
The two took to social media to share Rosemary's story and reach out for help.
They say thousands of people messaged them from all over the world. Some reached out to wish her the best or sent prayers, others edited photos to make them clear, translated documents or referred them to genealogy and DNA testing websites.
"It brings me to tears every day, the kindness everybody has shown my mom and our family," said Christa. "My mom has made great new friends."
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