Thomas Lord (aka Thomas Patrice Lode) was born in 1848, in a shanty near Brussels, Belgium to newly irreligious Walloon parents who were once Catholic. The parents, named Patrice and Hanne Lode, were depressed hucksters scuttering around with four much older surviving children until Thomas arrived into their world.
The four previous siblings all left Belgium for America, but none survived living there until Thomas broke the fourth wall via Ellis island and the Philly Line.
As a child, Thomas was a newspaper boy, surviving childhood scars from lotharios and other baddies alike. But he had an amazing ally, in the form of a pen pal named Errol Mersin, whose older brother was Alec. the three youngsters never spoke much English until they met for the first time at a toy factory, as teenaged hucksters.
The Mersin brothers retained their surname while Thomas changed his surname to Lord. That's because the name Lode sounded too Latino in a time when most people were casual racists and colourists. He was also unlucky because of his class status, until a curvy heiress to a local newspaper fortune saved his life from street conflict.