[2] Maria was born into a patriotic family: her father, Adam, took part in the Polish revolt called the January Uprising and spent years an exile in France where he completed medical studies.
In his absence, his family lived a very modest life in L’viv and his daughters – Maria and her younger sister Helena Polaczkówna, took on tutoring assignments to earn enough money to afford their education.
During the years before World War I, and then again in the 1920s, she worked with Professor Eugeniusz Romer (Geographical Institute of L’viv University).
She was the author or co-author of geography textbooks and of a valuable monograph “Wahania klimatyczne w Polsce w wiekach średnich” (Climatic Fluctuations in Medieval Poland, L’viv, 1925).
The apartment shared by sisters became a contact point for secret couriers and messengers of the Information and Propaganda Bureau of Home Army Headquarters, a system of asylum and safe places where illegal publications could be edited.