She dropped out, and only finished her high school education ten years later, when an elevator was installed.

[1] Daly was a founder in 1951, and longtime director, of the Seattle Handicapped Center,[4][5] "one of the first [organizations] to be both financed and operated by the disabled themselves".

[6] In the late 1950s, Daly was District 5 president of the Indoor Sports Club, a national disability organization.

[3] In 1973, she and her older sister Hazel Flagler Begeman co-write a book, Adventure in a Wheelchair: Pioneering for the Handicapped, about Ida Daly's life and work.

[2][10] Daly's contributions were recognized by the President's Commission on Employment of the Handicapped, with an award presented to her by the committee's chairman, Harold Russell.