An enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, she worked at a Harvey Hotel in Coconino County and was a mother of four young children. Physical descriptions list her as Native American, brown hair and brown eyes, between 5 feet 1 inch and 5 feet 5 inches tall and 110 to 120 pounds.

In 1955 the couple’s four children were found alone in a small building near the rim of the Grand Canyon, taken to a Flagstaff hospital and identified. Authorities then learned Preston Lee Monongya was serving in the U.S. Army and that Ida could not be located. Preston remarried in September 1955 and the children were later adopted; they were reunited with their father in the late 1960s. Decades passed with little information; a formal report was filed with the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office on April 26, 2016, and the case was entered into NamUs in July 2016.

Many details about Ida’s last known movements remain unknown. If anyone has information about Ida Mae Lee, where she lived or worked at the Grand Canyon in the 1950s, please share what is known.