First Lady of Poland. Born in the part of the Russia Empire which is now Lithuania, she relocated after high school to St. Petersburg, Russia to study in the Bestuzhev Courses, a university for women. Her parents were Ludmiła Koplewska and Konstanty Koplewski, a prominent physician. She was interested in politics and cultivated friendships within certain revolutionary circles, which were interested in the overthrow of the Russian Czar. She was described as being beautiful, socially poised, well-read, clever and intelligent. In 1883, she met and married Marian Juszkiewicz, a young railroad engineer; they divorced in 1887 after the birth of their daughter Wanda. She became a teacher, active in politics with her Marxism thinking and a member of Social-Revolutionary Party Proletariat. She was arrested in 1885 for her revolutionary activity. She had become close to Stanislaw Roman Dmowski, who would later be the leader of the National Democratic Party. In 1892, she met Jozef Piłsudski, who had just returned from being exiled to Siberia. Then she had two suitors: Jozef Pilsudski and Roman Dmowski, who would later become staunch political opponents of each other. On July 15, 1899, she and Pilsudski married in the village of Paproć Duża. To have church wedding rites, the couple had to convert to the Lutheran faith as the Catholic Church would not recognize her divorce. Dmowski never married, and many of his biographies stated the love-of-his-life was Maria. In February 1900, the couple was arrested for revolutionary activities when a clandestine printing press was discovered in their apartment. She was in jail for eleven months, whereas her husband was held much longer and eventually transferred to a mental hospital. After he escaped from the mental hospital, the couple fled to Lwów in eastern Galicia in Austria-Hungary. By 1901, the couple was in exile in London, where Polish Socialist Party's leadership had organized. She was very popular with this group; later the group would split with her husband being leader of one fraction. In April 1902, they returned to Austria-Hungary and by 1904 back to Poland. In 1908, her daughter Wanda died. By 1909, she became aware that there was a romantic affair between her husband and Aleksandra Szczerbińska, her husband’s beautiful political colleague who was twenty-three years her junior. Before World War I, the couple continued to maintain a household together, attended political functions as a couple, and though their marital relationship was deteriorating, she supported him in his political endeavors. Along with being depressed, her physical health was declining. During the war her husband was arrest and imprisoned; this time by the Germans. In 1918, the war ended; her husband was released in November of that year; Poland was an independent county; her husband became the Commander and Chief making her the First Lady of Poland. At this point, her husband abandoned her for Aleksandra; Maria refused to give him a divorce and withdrew from public life until her death three years later at the age of fifty-six. Her husband did not attend her funeral and two months later in October 1921, he married Alexksandra, the mother of his two daughters.