Jane Barnell was an American bearded lady who worked in circus sideshows, dime museums and carnivals, who used various stage names including Princess Olga, Madame Olga and Lady Olga.
21 Facts About Jane Barnell
1.
2.
Jane Barnell was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, to George W Barnell, a Russian Jewish itinerant wagon maker, and his wife, a woman of Irish and Catawban ancestry.
3.
Jane Barnell was their second child, and she had three sisters and two brothers.
4.
Jane Barnell's mother thought she was cursed and took her to hoodoo doctors and other folk healers to remove her condition.
5.
Jane Barnell toured with the circus for several months around the South before the circus went to New Orleans, left for Europe, and took her with them.
6.
Jane Barnell was placed in a charity hospital and later in an orphanage.
7.
Jane Barnell was later found by her father by the time she was five.
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Jane Barnell had either tracked the circus from the Carolinas to Germany, or the woman who ran the circus had the Berlin police contact the sheriff of Wilmington.
9.
Jane Barnell began to shave in order to conceal her condition.
10.
Jane Barnell's grandmother told her stories about Florence Nightingale, which inspired her to work as a student nurse in the old city hospital at Wilmington when she turned 17.
11.
Jane Barnell worked there for about a year until an unpleasant incident occurred that made her believe she would never have a normal life.
12.
Jane Barnell tried several stage names before eventually settling on Lady Olga Roderick.
13.
Jane Barnell went back to North Carolina every winter until her grandmother died in 1899.
14.
Jane Barnell worked with the Robinson circus for fourteen years.
15.
Jane 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.
16.
Jane Barnell appeared in a Tod Browning's Freaks which, according to the DVD documentary, left her unhappy with the overall portrayal of the sideshow performers in the film.
17.
Jane Barnell's interview is one of the few sources that exists about her life.
18.
Jane Barnell's remains were cremated by the New York and New Jersey Cremation Company.
19.
Jane Barnell's second husband was a balloonist who was killed months after their marriage.
20.
Jane Barnell had little contact with her family after she became a performer.
21.
Jane Barnell claimed that she had been married thrice; the first time when she was fourteen; the second time when she was nineteen; and then to her husband of four years Thomas O'Boyle.