Laura Madigan
| Laura Madigan | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
1849-03-25 Billnäs, Finland |
| Died |
1918-11-04 (Age 69) Limhamn, Sweden |
| Occupation | Circus director |
Laura Madigan (25 March 1849 - 4 November 1918) was a Swedish show rider and circus performer and director.
Laura Madigan, née Eleonora Cecilia Christina Maria Olsen, was the mother of Elvira Madigan. Her birth data are unconfirmed as she is not found in the Finnish registrations of birth records. Her parents were the Norwegian circus performers Olaj Elias Olsen (1819-1862) and Annamaria Olsen (1818-1908). During her childhood she lived in Finland and Sweden.
In 1867 she toured with the French circus director Didier Gautier's Cirque du Nord in northern Germany. There she got to know Danish circus performer Frederik Jensen with whom she had a daughter - Elvira Madigan - who was born in Flensburg in December 1867. The couple never married.
The tour continued to Denmark where she seems to have left Gautier's circus, and Elvira's father, to work instead for Cirkus Renz in Germany and Austria. At that time she started using the artistic name "Miss Ulbinska". In Berlin, on 30 March 1871, she gave birth to her second child, a boy she named Richard Henrich Olsen, who would later be a well known circus performer under the name Oscar Madigan (1871-1929). The father of this child is unknown.
Between 1873 and 1874 her whereabouts remain unknown. She would later claim that she worked in America. In 1875 she reappeared in Europe with Cirkus Myers in Austria and Germany. There she got to know circus performer John Madigan who would become her husband. The couple moved to the French circus director Francois Loisset's Cirque de Paris that was touring first in northern Germany, and then in Scandinavia, between 1876 and 1877. When Loisset died in Norrköping in the summer of 1877, his circus wound up, and the Madigan family moved to Russia. Most of their time there was spent with Ciniselli's circus in Saint Petersburg and Hinne's circus in Moscow.
In the summer of 1879 the family ran its own small circus in Finland, and now the couple's daughter, Elvira, performed as a tight-rope dancer. During the 1880s Elvira became known in the European circus scene, and the family toured around Europe with Elvira and Laura Madigan's foster child Gisela Brož.
In 1887 the family started its second circus, this time in Denmark. From October of that year the tour continued to Sweden. In January 1888, the circus visited Kristianstad. There Sixten Sparre came to see the performance. He became infatuated with Elvira and the two started sending letters to each other. In May 1889 Sparre managed to persuade Elvira to leave her family and the circus to live with him instead. After just two months Sparre murdered Elvira and committed suicide.
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