Jane Barnell

Martha Jane Barnhill (January 3, 1876

By the age of 2, Barnell had begun growing a beard as a result of hirsutism. As a teenager, she shaved regularly in an attempt to conceal her beard. In 1893, at the age of 17, inspired by stories of Florence Nightingale told by her grandmother, Barnell began training as a student nurse at the city hospital in Wilmington. She worked there for about a year before leaving after what she later described as an unpleasant incident and returning to her grandmother's farm.

Barnell toured for a time with a number of circuses, including the Ringling Brothers circus, and later joined Hubert's Museum in Times Square, New York City.

In April 1935, she was working at the Ringling Brothers' sideshow at Madison Square Garden. Marriage and relationships Barnell married four times.

For many years after her death, some published and online sources incorrectly reported that she had died on October 26, 1951, in Los Angeles, after confusing her with another woman, Susan Jane Barnell. During photographer Diane Arbus's later research into Barnell's life, Mitchell, who had interviewed Barnell in 1940, confirmed that she had in fact died in 1945.