In 1867, she toured with the French circus director Didier Gautier's Cirque du Nord in northern Germany.

[1] 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 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.

[2] 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.

[1] When Loisset died in Norrköping in the summer of 1877, his circus wound up, and the Madigan family moved to Russia.

[3] 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.

[3] When the circus visited Gävle in August 1897, fire broke out in the building were the Madigan family was staying over night.