Musician, Polish Prime Minister. He was a renowned composer, famed pianist, and a voice for Polish independence. During World War I, he advocated for Polish independence by touring the United States. He gained the support of United States President Woodrow Wilson, who listed an independent Poland as #13 in his Fourteen Points at the Paris Peace Conference on January 8, 1918. On January 17, 1919, he became the new nation of Poland's Prime Minister and the foreign minister during which he signed the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I. He resigned his position on November 27, 1919 and eventually left Poland to reside in Switzerland, resuming his musical career in 1921. With the dawn of World War II, he never returned to Poland. On September 1, 1939, the Nazi Forces invaded Poland, thus the Polish government fled to Paris, France. He was asked to join the exiled Polish government, but by May 10, 1940, the Nazi Forces had invaded France. The year 1940 found him in exile in the United States, dying soon afterward. Born the son of a servant in the village of Kurylowka, he studied at the Warsaw Musical Institute in 1872 and by 1878, was an instructor. He married in 1880 but his first wife died in childbirth the next year. At that point, he went to Venice to study piano. Between 1887 and 1891 he made his first public appearances as a pianist, in Vienna, Paris, London, and New York City. In 1898 he settled in Switzerland, and by the following year, he married Helena Gorska, Baroness von Rosen. After his tours and composing a successful opera, he became director of the Warsaw Conservatory in 1909. Upon his death at the age of eighty of purely old age symptoms in New York, his body began a strange odyssey before reaching its final resting place. While Poland remained under the Nazi's occupation during World War II, the composer's remains could not be returned for burial. A funeral mass was held at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City before 4,500 mourners inside with 35,000 outside, who were unable to enter. Statesmen and leaders from the political field as well as world musical figures attended the funeral. United States President Franklin Roosevelt upon hearing of the predicament involved with his burial offered a temporary repose at Arlington Cemetery in the grotto beneath "The Mast of the U.S.S. Maine." His remains were transported to Arlington where a funeral service was held in the Memorial Amphitheater. Afterwards the casket was conveyed to the base of the "Mast of the Maine" where it remained for some 53 years. With Poland under Communist rule post World War II, the Cold War began and Paderewski's body remained at Arlington Cemetery. While on a visit to the Unites States in 1969, his casket was viewed and blessed by the visiting Archbishop of Krakow, Karol Woytyla, who became Pope John Paul II. Finally, the Communist rule of Poland was discarded and Lech Welesa became the prime minister. Through him, the composer's wishes were fulfilled and his remains were returned to Poland in 1992. Thousands of Poles greeted his return culminating in a funeral mass at the Basilica of The Cathedral of St. John in Warsaw, with United States President George Herbert Walker Bush as well as representatives from many European countries in attendance. Bush spoke briefly during the mass and with the culmination of the festivities, Ignacey Paderewski was finally home fifty-three years after his death. The great Polish patriot's remains were interred in a lower-level crypt, which is the burial place of other high ranking Polish patriots and church bishops. However, his heart remained in the United States enshrined at the church of Our Lady of Czestochowa, which is located in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Years before, he wrote in his memoirs, "America, the country of my heart, my second home".