Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
History Quarterly Digital Archives

Source: April 1955 Volume 8 Number 3, Page 55

Brigadier General Norman Rudolph, U.S. Army, retired

Although born in Indianapolis, General Randolph was reared and educated in Bryn Mawr and Ardmore, to which region he returned after his retirement from the Army.

He graduated from west Point in the famous class of 1915 which also contained President Eisenhower and General Omar Bradley. On the General Staff he had a total of eleven years of service in the United States, Panama, and the Philippine Islands. Between wars he had many special assignments, including teaching at West Point and other military schools, work for which his kindly nature must have fitted him well.

In 1923 he graduated from a school for foreigners in Madrid, and the knowledge of Spanish gained there prepared him for later special assignments in Latin America. He was a member of the American Electoral Commission in Nicaragua in 1928, and was sent to Cuba, Haiti, Santo Domingo, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador on a special mission for the State and War Departments in 1940.

In 1945 General Randolph was retired from the army for physical disability incurred in the line of duty. From then until his death on May 16, 1953, he was Executive Secretary of The Valley Forge Commission, in which position he carried out many improvements in the Park.

A kindly, unassuming man, it is difficult to imagine him commanding troops in war; he must have been beloved by them.