page_title: Lavinia Warren
section_title: Personal life
hierarchical_section_title: Lavinia Warren / Personal life
context_page_description: Mercy Lavinia Warren Stratton was an American proportionate dwarf, who was a circus performer and the wife of General Tom Thumb. She was known for her appearance in one silent film, The Lilliputians Courtship.
context_section_description: Romantically pursued by the tiny entertainer Commodore Nutt, her affections belonged to General Tom Thumb from their first introduction. Lavinia met General Tom Thumb while working at Barnum's American Museum. Their wedding was one of the biggest events in nineteenth century New York. She was married in an elaborate ceremony to Tom Thumb on February 10, 1863 at Grace Episcopal Church and the wedding reception was held at the Metropolitan Hotel which included the couple greeting guests from atop the grand piano.  Her sister Minnie Warren was her bridesmaid.  While admission to the actual wedding was free, Barnum sold tickets to the reception for $75 each to the first five thousand to apply. After Lavinia and Tom were married they both got even more famous.
  Lavinia and General Tom Thumb were living a life of luxury due to their fame, but this also came with some down sides. Lavinia and Tom were presented as childlike to the public by P.T. Barnum. This was an advertising strategy to make the audience feel sympathetic for them in order to sell more tickets. Though they were some of the most famous people in America at the time, due to the way they were presented, people treated them like children. Many people Lavinia met wanted to pet her and hold her. She wrote in her autobiography "It seemed impossible, to make people understand at first that I was not a child; that, being a woman, I had the womanly instinct of shrinking from a form of familiarity which in the case of a child of my size would have been as natural as it was permissible." Even though Lavinia was not extremely fond of how she was viewed by the public, she still continued to perform. Since Lavinia's life revolved around her presence in the media, she once said "I belong to the public."
  Together, Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren became famous. President Abraham Lincoln and his wife provided a reception for the new couple at the White House. Tiffany and Co. gave a silver coach to the couple. They amassed and spent a fortune over the course of their life together which would have made them millionaires by today's standards. They had no actual children, though they did pretend to in the public eye (pictured).
  Minnie, who grew to be 27 inches (69 cm) high, also married a little person in P.T. Barnum's employ: Major Edward Newell. She became pregnant with a normal-sized child, but excitement was cut short by tragedy on July 23, 1878 when Minnie and her 6 pounds (2.7 kg)-baby died during the birthing. Several years later, Lavinia and her husband stayed at Newhall House in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and were narrowly rescued by their friend and manager, Sylvester Bleeker, from what had been referred to as "one of the worst hotel fires in American history." Within 6 months, on July 15, 1883, her husband suddenly died at age 45 of a stroke.
  Two years after her husband's death, Lavinia married an Italian dwarf, Count Primo Magri, and they operated a famous roadside stand in Middleborough, Massachusetts.  At age 73, she appeared alongside Count Magri in a 1915 silent film, The Lilliputian's Courtship.
caption: Wedding photo[nb 2]
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