Editing Helena Modjeska (section)

==Immigration==
[[File:Modrzejewska Camille.jpg|thumb|Modrzejewska in [[Alexandre Dumas, fils]]', ''[[The Lady of the Camellias|Camille]]'', 1878]]
In July 1876, after spending more than a decade as the reigning diva of the Polish national theater, for reasons both personal and political, Modjeska and her husband chose to immigrate to the United States.{{sfn |Modjeska |1910 |p=257}}

{{blockquote|My husband's only desire was to take me away from my surroundings and give me perfect rest from my work ... Our friends used to talk about the new country, the new life, new scenery, and the possibility of settling down somewhere in the land of freedom, away from the daily vexations to which each Pole was exposed in Russian or Prussian Poland. [[Henryk Sienkiewicz]] was the first to advocate emigration. Little by little others followed him, and soon five of them expressed the desire to seek adventures in the jungles of the virgin land.

My husband, seeing the eagerness of the young men, conceived the idea of forming a colony in California on the model of the [[Brook Farm]]. The project was received with acclamation.{{sfn |Modjeska |1910 |p=249}}}}

Once in America, Modjeska and her husband purchased a [[Pioneer House of the Mother Colony|ranch]] near [[Anaheim, California]]. [[Sypniewski#California links|Julian Sypniewski]], Łucjan Paprowski, and [[Henryk Sienkiewicz]] (winner of the [[Nobel Prize for literature]] in 1905), were among the friends who had accompanied them to California. It was during this period that Sienkiewicz wrote his ''Charcoal Sketches (Szkice węglem).'' Originally the artists [[Stanisław Witkiewicz]] (father of [[Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz]]) and [[Adam Chmielowski]] (the future [[Adam Chmielowski|St. Albert]]) were also to have come with Modjeska's group, but they changed their plans. She was a member of the [[Pacific Coast Women's Press Association]].

Modjeska intended to abandon her career and envisioned herself living "a life of toil under the blue skies of California, among the hills, riding on horseback with a gun over my shoulder."{{sfn |Modjeska |1910 |p=249}} The reality proved less cinematic. None of the colonists knew the first thing about ranching or farming, and they could barely speak English.{{sfn |Modjeska |1910 |p=250}} The utopian experiment failed, the colonists went their separate ways, and Modjeska returned to the stage, reprising the [[Shakespeare]]an roles that she had performed in Poland.{{sfn |Shattuck |1987 |p=126}}{{sfn|Obst|2000}} Perhaps the best account of daily life on the ranch is [[Theodore Payne]]'s memoir, ''Life on the Modjeska Ranch in the Gay Nineties''.