Creating Fiction from History: 10/26/2022

Maggie was almost royalty, but she never got the chance. Born Magda Joanna Kowalski, Maggie was the daughter of a distant descendant to the Hapsburgs. Only a lowly lieutenant at the time, her father was unfortunate enough to be stationed aboard a certain mail train traveling between Warsaw and St. Petersburg.

It was this train that was the subject of the infamous Bezdany Raid. Even more unfortunate for our little heroine, who was barely ten at the time, she and her mother had accompanied her father on the fateful trip. As several bombs were employed, both bringing the train to a screeching, grinding halt, as well as blowing the safe to retrieve approximately 200,000 Russian rubles, both Maggie's parents perished in the initial jolt.

Jozef Pilsudski led the Combat Organization of the Polish Socialist Party in this raid on the night of September 26-27, 1908. One of the several female raiders was Pilsudski's future wife, Aleksandra.

Maggie survived the raid and was relocated soon thereafter to North-Eastern Iowa. The township of Ludlow, in Allamakee County, became Maggie's home and though she never got the chance to be a countess in her native Poland, in her later years she earned the nickname Countessa for the dash of royalty she brought to that little corner of Iowa!

The accompanying photograph might picture a 19-year-old Magda Pilsudski, who had been adopted by Jozef and Aleksandra, who had thus saved her from being an orphan!

If you would like to create fiction from history with one of the museum's photos, please contact the Ledger at (406) 287-5301 or email whledger@gmail.com.