This is my father’s mother’s mother’s father — which makes him my great-great grandfather — John Weiry Rudisill, in his Confederate States of America uniform, and his ‘fearsome’ beard, which apparently he sported until his death April 24, 1885. Rudisill is an Americanization of the Swiss German Rüdisühli or Rüedisüli.
Once in my own lifetime I hosted a beard just this impressive in its own right. One day, however, something told me its time had come and I marched to the mirror with a pair of scissors and it was gone. I was surprised at how easy it was to part with. Today I know that I am far too neurotic for a beard.
Looking at the photo of John Rudisill, Stephen says I have the same cruel eyes. Another picture from my ‘Media’ trove puts the lie to that.
Cruel eyes! What a lot of nonsense…
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September 30, 2018 at 8:19 pm
larrymuffin
Not a cruel look more like stern. Swiss you say from which Canton?
September 30, 2018 at 10:57 pm
Dave
I wish I could tell you, but I cannot. I’m not keeping it a secret, I just don’t know;-)
October 1, 2018 at 5:25 pm
larrymuffin
Well it is a very common name in the town of Sennwald/Frumsen in the Canton of St-Gallen on the border with Liechtenstien and Austria
October 1, 2018 at 10:40 pm
Dave
Not so long ago, my brother and I considered how little we know of Grandmother H’s lineage in comparison to Grandfather H’s. Your contribution may have increased the sum of our knowledge tenfold;-) How DO the Swiss end up in the land of grits and juleps? (Maybe I don’t want to know;-)