Consider this - Oscar Eliason was born in the same year as the great Howard Thurston. By the time Thurston appeared in Australia in 1905 he was heading towards the top of his field and he made a huge success of his tour. Yet Thurston worked in the shadow of Eliason; his reviews, though good, do not convey the same excitement that prevailed in 1898. (Thurston's manager was Edwin Geach, and curiously he had just had some contractual difficulties with a certain M.B.Curtis!)

Could Oscar Eliason have become as great as Thurston? We can never know, but Howard Thurston had no doubts. In the 1920's he signed a contract with Harry Jansen to take out his second show unit. A condition of that agreement was that Jansen should henceforth be known by a new name - Dante.

In the large "green trunk" publicity book issued by Harry Jansen can be found this statement:-

Dante's gravesite became a regular place for visiting magicians to be photographed including Howard Thurston in 1905 and Chung Ling Soo in 1909. Will Dexter's book, 'The Riddle of Chung Ling Soo', says that 'it was Soo, when he was Billy Robinson, who taught Dante his first trick.' Whether or not this is so (1), Robinson must have pondered the tragedy of a fine magician cut down so early in his life - little knowing that in 1918 his own life would be taken away by a bullet.

The sorrow of Oscar Eliason's life was that he was never allowed to complete his career of spread his fame around the world. The joy was that for seventeen months before the turn of the century, audiences were amused and amazed by a remarkable young man whose talents fully entitled him to be called DANTE THE GREAT.

     

Frank Eliason, having been the show's right hand man, took over the name Dante and, with Edmunda, started a New Zealand tour under direction of Edwin Geach, commencing on January 11, 1900 in Thames, the Paeroa on the following day. At the end of January they moved from Onehunga to Hawera in just a week, and given the distance involved, and the fact that major towns in between were not played, historian Bernard Reid speculates that lack of venues to hire, combined with the problems of dragging a heavy show around poor roads, put obstacles in their way which eventually defeated the tour. During early February they moved into the Waikato goldfields region and toured somewhat successfully, according to the press.  The show was always well reviewed, and Frank was given credit for his own skills as a performer, but on February 10 the Wellington Evening Post reported that the Dantes had returned to Sydney aboard the ‘Zealandia’. On the 15th, the New Zealand Mail commented that the tour had been “only a fair success, and not enough money in it for Edwin Geach...”

Added to the practical difficulties of touring, Edmunda was already several months pregnant. On August 30 1900, it was reported that she had given birth to a son; he was named Oscar, but was called Jack as he grew up.

Frank Eliason now went out on the road alone, and was seen in Brisbane from September 29, 1900 with the 'Royal Burlesque and Specialty Company'. Until late 1904 he was travelling in Queensland and New South Wales with his magic, and later returned to America via a lengthy tour of Manila and Burma. Further details of Frank's whereabouts until 1921 can be found in Chapter 7. ]

Edmunda Eliason stayed in Sydney following her son’s birth, but by mid-November announcements were made that she had started out on tour as “Madame Dante”, under  Mr. G. F. Barnes and Oscar’s right-hand man, Mr. Barker. Her initial performances were shaky and the Muswellbrook Chronicle of November 14 reported with some disappointment, “making all possible allowance ... we are compelled to say that the performance did not nearly realise expectations, and the programme placed in the hands of the audience was not carried out at all ... could have been done with equal if not more skill by other conjurors who have visited.”

Although it cannot reasonably be expected that Edmunda (or Frank, for that matter) should live up to the abilities and experience of the late Oscar, by November 24 Madame Dante was receiving far more enthusiastic comments, the Toowoomba Chronicle praising the variety in the show, and the performer as “clean and quick”. Both the ‘Beggar’s Dream’ and ‘Marvellous Bicyclist’ illusions were included in the show, which travelled through Gympie and Bundaberg (Queensland), Rockhampton,  Mount Morgan, and to Brisbane at the Opera House from December 12, 1900 until January 7, 1901, supported by a Mdle.Rougier and a company of sixteen. Edmunda then returned to Sydney.

Much was made during 1901 of an intended tour of Tasmania, but Edmunda remained in Sydney and, when she did return to the stage in late September, it was with Rickards' Tivoli Theatre circuit, performing her "Illusionary Dance Creations" in a variety bill which featured Professor De Wynne as the magical component. This series of illuminated dance routines, as originated by Loie Fuller, was a decided hit and, after playing through to early October, Edmunda transferred to Melbourne, at the Opera House and Tivoli theatres until late November 1901. There followed a season at the Adelaide Tivoli into late December, and by January 16 Edmunda had departed Australia with Dix's Gaiety Company for New Zealand.

In New Zealand, the Dix company played successfully in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin through to March 15, and on May 3 Edmunda and her children boarded the Monowai and sailed again for Sydney. This was effectively the conclusion of Edmunda's performing in Australasia. Meanwhile during 1902, Frank Eliason was travelling around New South Wales with a partner who, on occasion, was referred to as 'Madame Dante' by the newspapers.

It was at the start of June the following year, 1903, when Virginia/Edmunda Eliason departed Australia for good and, despite earlier speculation that she might travel to India and South Africa to perform, she returned to Salt Lake City with Ethel (later known to the family as "Billee" and married name Longacre) and young Oscar Jr. (known in the family as "Jack", he died April 8, 1955).

The cold recitation of dates and venues says little about Edmunda's struggles through the two and a half years following Oscar Eliason's death, dealing not only with her own grief but with the responsibility of raising a new baby and a young child. However, we have an insight from two interviews she gave to newspapers, revealing the challenges she was facing at the time.

"Quiz" - Adelaide, November 27, 1901 - [in an extended article titled "A Half-Hour's Chat with Madame Dante"]:

"Madame is described as the 'widow of Dante the Great', but to look at her one would not think her old enough to be a widow. She is quite young. But I had to talk for only a few moments with the tall, graceful American before I learned that she had passed through some sad ordeals. She has a fine complexion, beautiful brown eyes - sad looking orbs - and coal black hair. Pathos could be read in every line of her face and in her eyes. .... Madame told me that she was heartbroken, but endeavoured to carry out her husband's work by appearing as a conjurer herself. She filled all his dates in Queensland .... she has both of her children with her and has to have a nurse along to care for them while she is fulfilling her professional engagements."

"... there is, in the pretty woman's manner that quiet suppression, almost numbness, which proclaims a sorrow borne with resignation and ever present ... there is not any outward sign of depression. She is gowned in black certainly, but not the trapping of deep mourning. However, those who look below the surface [a fight] against sorrow is apparent in a certain stillness and listlessness, and an air of repression which is not natural at her age.... They were dreadful months before the baby, that is so precious, arrived to keep her small daughter company. How she lived through that time of grief and loneliness in a strange land, and found the courage later to carry on the entertainment business is marvellous: 'I often wondered how I lived through all the troubles", Madame Dante quietly remarks. ‘I was so far away from everyone. People were very kind to me, but they are not like relatives, and your mother. You seem to want a mother so badly in times of trouble.'

... I was so anxious that his arrangements should be carried through that I started on a tour through Queensland and was very successful ... but I had to give up the conjuring business, for I felt I could not succeed, owing to the age of my baby, which prevented me paying all the attention required for the entertainment. I had a good nurse, but I felt it my duty to attend personally to the baby as much as possible ... my nerves gave way and I required rest. Mr. Rickards then offered me an engagement, and I accepted it. I may take up the 'Magic' later on.

.... I, like my husband, was born in Salt Lake City, the Mormon part of Utah. We are, however, not Mormons. ... Yes, I did the whole performance in Queensland - the dancing and everything. But it was too much for me, as it requires great physical exertion. My people are very proud of me for carrying on the business. They are anxious I should return home, but that is not my wish as yet. Everything at home would recall my husband."

Virginia/Edmunda's years following her return to the United States have been recorded by family researcher and great-granddaughter, Gina Riner.

Virginia married Mr. Brigham Lewis Morse from Salt Lake city, and a daughter, Jean Alice Morse, was born of this marriage in 1904 or 1905. However, almost immediately, Verge left her husband and went to San Francisco. After six months Jean Alice was returned to Salt Lake City, there to be raised by Brigham Morse and Verge's mother, Anne Hammer. Verge retained the care of both Ethel and Jack.

Researcher Lindsey Arkley has provided convincing evidence (Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Edmunda_Hammer) that Edmunda joined with American illusionist and escapologist, Robert "Doc" Cunningham, known as 'Cunning', at times between 1909-1912. The Salt Lake Herald Republican of Nov.11 1902, mentions that Cunning, who was performing in Australia in 1902, had visited Mrs. Eliason and the gravesite.
Various newspaper reports make mention of her dancing, and assisting Cunning in routines of pseudo-spiritualism and mindreading and, while she is not explicitly acknowledged as the former partner of Oscar Eliason, her title "Mlle. Edmunda", the style of routine she performed, and the close match of some of the promotional wording used, leaves little doubt that this was the same performer. She was seen in Utah, Hawaii and Wisconsin as late as July 1912.

(1) At first glance, Will Dexter's reference to William Robinson possibly teaching magic to Oscar might be valid, because Robinson worked for Alexander Herrmann, and might have journeyed through Utah with Herrmann. However, he had only joined Alexander Herrmann in 1893, well past the point of Oscar being a novice in magic. The claim remains unverified.