The story of the bearded Hungarian baroness

A few years ago szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu reported on the story of Baroness Sidonia Barcsy, who lived the carefree life of the 19^th century nobility until the day she became terrified to notice that real beard was growing on her face. Here comes her extraordinary story, it’s up to you to decide whether or not you believe it!

The original writer of the article came across a photo of a lady with a bushy beard and a text saying: “Baroness Sidonia de Barcsy was a double rarity in the show world: a genetically-female bearded lady and a true member of a royal family”. This was what triggered the writer to find out more about her life.

Sidonia was born in Pest-Buda on the 1^st of May, 1866. There was nothing odd about her, she was beautiful, charming and grew up to be a very good-looking young lady. She had quite a few admirers, among others Baron Antal Barcsy captain cavalier, who earned her love. Sidonia was 19 years old when she gave birth to their child, Nicu. However, the happiness didn’t last for too long as 12 days later the young baroness was terrified to notice that hair started growing on her face. She didn’t want her husband to notice it, so she started plucking them one by one. She managed to keep this a secret for a while, but her beard started growing so fast and strong that it caught Antal’s eyes, more exactly his hands, when he was fondling his wife’s face. Surprisingly the husband took it quite well and forbid his wife to trouble with removing it.

Very happy days were to come hereafter, but they noticed that their son was too small for his age. This was confirmed by a doctor who stated that the boy was Lilliputian. Then came even more trouble, as Antal’s business hopes didn’t turn out as he would’ve liked them to, so he lost his fortune. In these straitened circumstances Sidonia’s specialty meant them the only relief. They started to travel around the country and showed her beard as a sensation for money. However, not too many people were keen on paying for something like this in Hungary, so they decided to conquer West Europe.