GOOD OLD DAYS:

Both Modjeska Canyon and the northern peak of Saddleback Mountain are named for famed Polish stage actress Helena Modjeska, but she spent her last days in Newport Beach at a small cottage on Bay Island, where she was once so beloved residents there once considered renaming the island in her honor.

The last year of Modjeska’s life, spent almost entirely on Bay Island, “was marked with the most dignified simplicity,” the Los Angeles Times reported after her death at age 68 on April 8, 1909.

“Here she was busy concluding her memoirs, to be published by a New York house, and performed also many small charities about the neighborhood,” the Los Angeles Times reported on April 9, 1909.

Modjeska and her husband purchased the small beach cottage on Bay Island after selling their famed Arden estate in Santiago Canyon in 1906, according to the Online Archives of California.

While the 23 houses that sit today on Bay Island today are worth millions, Modjeska purchased her beachfront cottage for a mere $2,400, according to historical documents.

Modjeska gained world acclaim for her portrayal of Shakespearean heroines in the 1880s and 1890s, but by the time of her death, she made only rare appearances on the stage, and then only for charitable causes.

Her health was failing by the time she moved to Bay Island, and newspapers across the county carried accounts of her illness.

“The veteran actress has been suffering for a long time from chronic kidney trouble, but her ailment has been newly complicated by an affection of the heart and lungs,” according to a Los Angeles Times story dated March 18, 1909.

A nurse named Jane Murdy, who trained under famed British army nurse Florence Nightingale, tended to Modjeska during her final days on Bay Island, according to historical accounts from the Los Angles Times.

Modjeska was so well thought of in Newport Beach that construction projects on Bay Island were delayed so as not to disturb the actress while she lay on her deathbed, according to an article dated April 4, 1909.

The actress fell into a coma a few days before her death, according to historical accounts from the Los Angeles Times.

“Count Charles Bozenta Chlapowski, her husband; her son, Ralph Modjeska of Chicago, with his family, and her nephew, Ludwig Opid of Los Angeles, with his family, were standing quietly at her bedside when the physician, his finger at her wrist, silently indicated that all was over. And so a great woman became history,” according to a historical account from the Los Angeles Times.

A requiem service was planned at Modjeska’s Bay Island home the day of her death, but was canceled when the priest didn’t show up, according to an L.A. Times story dated April 9, 1909.

The Pacific Electric railway sent a private car to Newport to carry Modjeska’s coffin to Los Angeles for her funeral at St. Vibiana’s cathedral.

Modjeska’s remains were later shipped back to her native Poland, where she was buried in a family plot in Krakow.

Reporter BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at brianna.bailey@latimes.com.