Laura Madigan

Eleonora Cecilia Christina Maria Olsen (25 March 1849 – 4 November 1918), better known under her stage name Laura Madigan, was a Swedish show rider and circus performer and director.

Life Laura Madigan, born 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. 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. There Sixten Sparre came to see the performance. He became infatuated with Elvira Madigan and the two started sending letters to each other. In May 1889, Sparre managed to persuade Elvira Madigan to leave her family and the circus to live with him instead. After just two months Sparre murdered Elvira Madigan and committed suicide. He was buried in Gävle. Madigan later had the gravestone (but not the casket) moved to their family plot in Lund. She ran the circus for a few more years on her own, but in 1902 she sold it to a man named Henning Orlando, and it was renamed Cirkus Orlando.