3
My heritage was a lively one.
My father, Thomas Scopes, was born in 1860 in the slums
of downtown London, the fifth of six children. He was a
true tea-drinking Cockney, who retained minor native
pronunciations all his life, having grown up "within the sound
of Bow bells," as he described it - the bells of Bow Church,
or St. Mary-le-Bow, situated at the center of London. He
was naturalized an American after I was born. Beyond him
I can only guess at my paternal ancestors; he was not inclined
to brood over genealogies.
Dad, who served an apprenticeship in England as a
marine machinist, came to Philadelphia in 1885 to look
about and to see a bit of the world before returning home
to settle down. He did not get back to England for forty-
four years, and then only for a short visit. From the eastern
United States he wandered south to Galveston, Texas, to
Mississippi and Tennessee. At Union City, Tennessee, near
the Kentucky line, he bought an interest in a machine shop
and planned to go into business, a dream that fizzled when
the shop's owner died before legal papers could be signed;
this abruptly shattered any hopes Dad may have had of
becoming a capitalist. Chance also entered his life frequently.
Fortunately, Dad found an American windfall worth
more than any business he might have owned. In Union
City he met and won a gentle, blue-eyed Kentucky belle,
Miss Mary Alva Brown. Theirs was a fortuitous meeting;
they became a good team.
Mother's family was of the sturdy Scotch-Irish pioneer