Born in 1761 in Strasbourg, France, Marie Grosholtz never knew her father,a German soldier who died before her birth. Her mother raised her in Berne, Switzerland. When she was older, Marie worked for a physician who used wax to mold anatomical parts to aid his teaching. Marie soon picked up the skill. When the doctor moved to Paris, Marie and her mother went with him.
Marie modeled wax figures of such well-known people as the French historian Voltaire and Swiss philosopher Rousseau. During the French Revolution, she was imprisoned and forced to model the heads of victims of the guillotine, including Marie Antoinette and the politician Robespierre.
In 1802, Marie and her children left her husband (a civil engineer named Francois Tussaud) behind in France, and went to London, England, where she eventually established her famous wax museum.
A fallen away Catholic, Madame Tussaud had returned to her faith by the time of her death on this day in 1850. A memorial table at St. Mary's Catholic Church in London bears her name, and she is buried in the parish cemetery.
- Little White Book, Diocese of Saginaw