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Ida
Wood had been living in relative peace as a recluse on a New York hotel
for 24 years when her sister died in 1931 and everything changed. One
of her lawyers, who was unfamiliar with Ms. Wood, worked to figure out
who this 93-year-old woman really was. For one thing, he discovered that
despite her miserly lifestyle, she was quite wealthy.
A
representative from Union Pacific revealed that the sisters owned about
$175,000 worth of stock and had not cashed their dividends for a dozen
years. Examining the sale of the New York Daily News, O’Brien learned
that Ida had sold the paper in 1901 to the publisher of the New York Sun
for more than $250,000. An old acquaintance reported that she sold all
of the valuable possessions she’d acquired over the years—furniture,
sculptures, tapestries, oil paintings. An officer at the Guaranty Trust
Company remembered Ida coming to the bank in 1907, at the height of the
financial panic, demanding the balance of her account in cash and
stuffing all of it, nearly $1 million, into a netted bag. Declaring she
was “tired of everything,” she checked into the Herald Square Hotel and
disappeared, effectively removing herself from her own life.
As
word got out, dozens of Wood's "relatives" came forward hoping to
inherit her wealth, going so far as to have her declared incompetent so
they could search her belongings. Yes, they found plenty, but it was
only after Ida Wood finally died that the strangest part of her story
came to light. And that's the story you'll find at
Past Imperfect.
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