Gisela became their foster child and got to learn tightrope dancing, along with the couple's two-year-younger daughter Elvira Madigan, on the slack wire.

The routine became a sensation, and for years the girls performed as the "Daughters of the air" at circuses and varieties all over Europe.

After a performance at Tivoli in Copenhagen in 1886 in front of the Danish royal family, the girls were each awarded one golden cross by the king of Denmark.

In Copenhagen, Gisela got to know the German circus performer Alexander Braatz (1864-1914), with whom she got engaged.

Alexander died around 1914; Gisela then lived as a widow in New York City until her death in 1944.