Moose Jaw twins make national headlines (again) after reunion with birth family

Moose Javian twin brothers Scott Marasse and Todd Wheeler found their birth family, including parents and siblings, five years ago, but their story has once again made national news — including a Family Feud appearance they made only six months after reuniting. 

“Meeting them was phenomenal, just one of the best moments of my life, I guess,” Scott told DiscoverMooseJaw.com. “We grew up in an adopted family, and they’re still my family, I love my mom and dad and we had sisters and brothers. It was good growing up, we never had any problems there. 

“And just to find that we have our biological family, too, is just amazing. And then experiencing doing things together, like Family Feud Canada we all did together (in 2020) and we traveled to Toronto, that was a great experience, too.” 

Their story started when their parents’ marriage hit a rocky point. Shirley and Chic Wheeler had been together 10 years and had three children already: sisters Pam and Teresa, and brother Kelly. As the Wheelers tried to work things out post-separation, Shirley became pregnant with twins. 

The couple made the difficult choice to give those twins up for adoption. Although they eventually reconciled, they were never going to tell their other children. 

But Pam Currie (her married name) signed up for Ancestry.ca and did a DNA kit. And, in 2019, so did Todd Marasse (Todd changed his last name after the reunion).  

“We’ve always known we were adopted,” Todd explained. “We grew up with foster kids all the time, so we knew that lifestyle of kids coming and going and not being with their families and being put up for adoption. 

“After we started having kids — we both had our first child ... pretty much a month apart, his first boy and my first boy ... — That’s kind of when we started thinking more about it.” 

Todd’s first son was deaf, and the doctors thought it was probably genetic. That put genetics on the twins’ minds, but they still had the fear that maybe the reunion wouldn’t be what they hoped. 

“There was always just hesitation about being rejected and, you know, finding the family and interrupting their lives,” Todd said. “That’s a pretty big interruption, finding two adult twin boys.” 

The twins were 49 years old when Todd’s DNA came back with an alert for ‘possible sibling.’ So, Todd contacted Pam. 

She was shocked.  

“She knew nothing about it and was quite surprised. And she’s like, ‘Well, what do you want?’ And I said, ‘well, I want to make a connection, if possible. We don’t want to rush you guys or anything, but I’d like to meet the family. ... So she’s like, ‘well, let me talk to my mom, and we’ll get back to you.’ 

“That was on a Friday. And on Sunday, she emailed back and she’s like, ‘Yeah. I guess you’re my brother.’” 

It was, obviously, a deeply emotional time. Todd and his mom texted at first, because Shirley could not speak over the phone.  

When they did eventually did speak, it was very warm, he said. 

“Mum was very apologetic. She was very sad, she cried. She was very sad that she had to make that decision and that she missed out on our lives like that. It was emotional.” 

The fears of rejection did not come true. They were alike, and it wasn’t difficult to meet in person. 

“Yeah, it was only about six months after, I guess, that we taped (Family Feud),” Scott laughed. “We all clicked. It was really good. It was like we’d always been together. It wasn’t awkward.” 

The family lives within hours of each other (Moose Jaw, Esterhazy, Bienfait), so they’ve kept in close contact since. The siblings all ride motorcycles and make regular trips to visit. They do holidays and BBQs, birthdays, graduations, and more. 

“It’s really been a blessing,” Todd added. 

The siblings with their parents (l-r, Teresa Smyth, Kelly Wheeler, Scott Marasse, Shirley Wheeler, Chic Wheeler, Todd Wheeler, and Pam Currie) (Shirley Wheeler/Facebook)