Unraveling
When Ida Wood ran into the hallway screaming for help she was five feet tall, weighed 70 pounds, and practically deaf. Her body resembled a question mark when she stood. Observers stated that her complexion was “as creamy and pink and unwrinkled” despite not bathing for several years. As the undertaker began preparing her sister’s dead body for transport, Ida began rambling off that she was a former southern belle, a New York socialite. She stated that her husband used to be a congressman and her brother-in-law the mayor. As the people in the room heard what Ida was saying, they looked around the room at the piles of yellowed newspapers, balls of used string, and numerous trunks and accepted Ida as senile. Or was she?
Tasked with finding Mrs. Wood’s next of kin, Attorney Morgan O’Brien, Jr. began an inquiry. He soon found out that Ida was far from poor. He found hidden shoeboxes full of cash totaling $247,000. There were uncashed Union Pacific stocks, a cracker box that contained a diamond necklace worth $40,000, and $500,000 in an oil cloth attached to Ida’s nightgown.
The court declared Ida Wood incompetent in September 1931. Her caretakers forced her to move down one floor and nurses cared for her around the clock. Ida had stored several trunks in the hotel’s basement and many more in a warehouse uptown. Investigators found fine bolts of fabric, exquisite gowns, necklaces, watches, tiaras, and gold certificates dating back to 1860.
Ida Wood died on March 12, 1932, one year after she opened her hotel door and cried for help. Only after her death were lawyers able to piece together exactly who Ida was. This was not an easy task and took several years. Finally, investigators determined that Ida Wood was, in fact, Ellen Walsh from Massachusetts. Her father, Thomas Walsh, was an Irish immigrant who settled in Malden, Massachusetts, and her mother grew up in the Dublin slums. Shortly after she wrote to Benjamin Wood, she changed her name to Ida Mayfield simply because she liked the sound of it. As she departed to meet her future lover and husband, her sister also changed her last name to Mayfield. Emma Wood was not the lovechild of Ida and Benjamin. Instead, she was Ida’s younger sister. Benjamin Wood never told any of Ida’s secrets.
Ida Wood was successful in creating a new identity for herself. She used her natural beauty and the intelligence that she acquired living modestly as a child to improve her social and economic standing. In an era when a person could simply disappear into a hotel, no questions asked, Ida was able to walk away from the identity that she created. Ida Ellen Walsh Mayfield Wood is buried at Calvary Cemetery in Woodside, New York.
Where did we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“The Curious Life of Ida Wood”. Tijana Radeska, The Vintage News. Feb 5, 2018.
“Everything Was Fake but Her Wealth”. Karen Abbott, Smithsonian. Jan. 23, 2013.
“Mrs. Wood’s Rubbish Pile”. Peter Lyon, The New York Times. Oct. 4, 1964.
