Man shocked to discover mother's secret past includes Indigenous roots, Stampede Wrestling and a long-lost son

A B.C. man has taken out classified ads in 110 community newspapers in Alberta and N.W.T. to try to find a brother he never knew he had — after discovering his now dead mother had a secret history including Indigenous roots and a child who may have been seized in the Sixties Scoop.

Lance Morrow, 53, lives in Surrey, B.C. and says he and his younger sister grew into adulthood thinking, first, that it was just the two of them, and secondly, that they were Caucasian.

It wasn't until after the death of his mother, Connie Ethier, that he was able to confirm their Indigenous heritage, and that she had given birth to an older brother that Morrow never knew he had.

In tracking down his mother's past over the past few years, he's found connections to a First Nations chief, an Order of Canada winner and Stampede Wrestling — as well as part of Canada's darker history.

It's developed into a mission of self-discovery, not only for him but also for his wife and two young daughters.

The latest step in that journey is the publication of the classified ad. It includes all of the information he has about his sibling's adoption. But it isn't much. The ad consists of the adoptive parents' education levels and career paths, and a couple of dates.

A secret that 'just sat there for years'

Just before Ethier died in 2002, she dropped the two bombshells about their heritage and the extra sibling — but only to Morrow's sister. 

"My mother had said something to my sister, I'm not sure what exactly was mentioned, but something to the regards of 'we had a brother,'" Morrow recalled.

"I'd spoken to [my mother] one evening and she just didn't really want to talk about it. She was just really standoffish and really wouldn't answer. Just one word answer kind of thing. So I ended the conversation and it just sat there for years."

Initially, Morrow said he didn't believe his sister, and with no confirmation from his mother, he dropped it. But more recently, Morrow and his family started pursuing ancestry and his family lineage online, and then came the first strand of proof his sister had been telling the truth: he had Indigenous roots.

Curiosity bubbled up and gnawed away at Morrow until one day he and his wife decided to fill out an application with his mother's information on it and sent it in to the post-adoption registry in Alberta — at the time, not knowing if there would be any file that existed for them to dig up.

"And so he was born in Calgary, his sister was born in Calgary, his parents married in Calgary, so we decided to start with the post-adoption registry in Alberta," said Kim Rasberry, Morrow's wife. 

About a month later, they received a letter in the mail: Morrow had a brother. 

"Finding out about my family history, and then finding out I had a brother now, it was just like wow, this is kind of neat. So the ball has just been rolling along here, finding out all kinds of stuff I never knew about," Morrow said. 

Asking his father about all of these developments was all but ruled out since Morrow and his father are estranged, and he says he's not even sure how to get a hold of his dad. Morrow did ask his mother's second husband, but he, too, said he knew nothing about her heritage or this third child. 

From N.W.T. childhood to one of wrestling's 'curvaceous babes'

A big part of what Morrow is learning about now is his mother's past and why she would have kept these secrets from her kids. 

When Ethier said she was from "up north," Morrow thought she was alluding to Edmonton, where she had spent some time, or something to that effect.

In fact, she was born and raised in Aklavik, N.W.T. It also turns out his family extends to a great-aunt who won the Order of Canada and a great-uncle was a Gwich'in First Nations chief. 

In a completely different vein, records from 1953 and 1954 show that Ethier was one of the female wrestlers in Alberta and part of Calgary's famed Stampede Wrestling. 

"Seven thousand Edmonton wrestling fans rocked and roared at the Gardens Tuesday as seven curvaceous babes let their hair down and engaged in a battle royal in the main event of promoter Al Oeming's weekly wrestling card.... Connie Ethier of Edmonton ... was the first to go as the six others pounced on her almost immediately," reads a newspaper report in the Edmonton Journal on June 10, 1953. 

From reaching out to friends and family, Morrow and Rasberry have been able to piece together parts of Ethier's life, moving from Aklavik to Edmonton and then to Calgary.  

Morrow 'hurt' that mother felt she had to hide past

Morrow says he struggles with the feelings he has toward his mother about these late-in-life revelations. 

"'Hurt,' I guess is the word. Hurt that she wanted to keep it inside for so long and not tell anybody, not even her own kids," he said.

"I can't go back to her and say this is what I got, what happened or why. It must have been tough on her just to keep that inside for years. It must just have been eating at her.... There's a lot of whys: it's tough." 

A possible reason for hiding it all

Rasberry was close with her mother-in-law and said there is "something strange" about this story that doesn't line up with everything she knew about Ethier. 

"I just have this gut feeling that either the baby was taken away from her against her will, whether that be a part of the Sixties Scoop because she was Aboriginal or in a home for unwed mothers or something. She was only 21 when she gave birth to Lance's brother," she said. 

Rasberry also finds the timing curious as Ethier married Morrow's father less than three months after the adoption went through.

Although the pair admit there are other possibilities, they say the Sixties Scoop seems the most likely reason that a mother would keep such a secret. 

The Sixties Scoop spanned decades and saw Indigenous children removed from their homes and families and rehomed with non-Indigenous people, which resulted in loss of culture and identity for many.

• Ottawa announces $800M settlement with Indigenous survivors of Sixties Scoop

"It would make sense about why she would never speak about being Aboriginal and why she would never speak about the brother. Because maybe she felt if she disclosed she was Aboriginal to anybody that maybe Lance and his sister would have been taken away from her, too."

An Alberta Children's Services spokesperson told CBC News they could not confirm or deny whether or not the file in question was a part of the Sixties Scoop.

But the spokesperson added if the adoption occurred between 1955 and 1975 involving an Indigenous mother in Alberta, you could "almost count on it." 

Morrow and Rasberry have written to Premier Rachel Notley asking for biological siblings to be given rights in circumstances such as these, but they have had no response thus far.

Meanwhile, Morrow and his family remain hopeful they will soon hear from his long-lost brother, refusing to talk about if they will find him, but rather when.