A MULTIFACETED SAGA OF AN INCREDIBLY STRONG WOMAN Born in poverty in 1880, Ida enters a world devoid of love. Her spirit and drive is her only salvation from being swallowed up in the quagmire of struggle which surrounds her. Never allowed the privilege of a formal education Ida falls victim to con-artists intend on stealing her home and all her positions following the tragic death of her husband. The year is 1915, and Kansas City is little more than a wide open and wild city totally lacking in the rudiments of social structure which should have protected her. She is railroaded into an insane asylum and torn from her four sons who are shunted off to a brutal orphanage. Only through the assistance of Tom Pendergast, Kansas City's political crime boss, does Ida obtain release from the entrapment of the asylum. She re-emerges into a world where her children are scattered. Two of her boys have escaped the orphanage and remain estranged from Ida for years as they are being raised in a strange and secret location just blocks from where Ida raises her two youngest sons.

Her youngest son falls victim to criminal elements involved with the massive crime enterprises of the Al Capone empire--a failing which haunts him long after he tries to straighten out his life. Throughout her life Ida socializes within the highest levels of Kansas City's Pendergast political machine with its gambling, bootlegging, open support of prostitution and political bribery. In spite of having been born in poverty, uneducated, swept up in the winds of social change, Ida juggles her common past with an uncanny ability to interact with the city's most sophisticated socialites, wining and dining with the famous, infamous and Hollywood's elite stars. Through it all Ida maintains her dignity and epitomizes the strength and magnificence of the human spirit.