Edna Wallace is the kind of mother that no child should have. Throughout her younger years, she was the 'friendliest' woman in town, sleeping with so many men, she has no idea who the father of her children are. She used to bring home her boyfriends, not caring that her daughter, Beth, became their victim. When Beth was still relatively young, she brought home Mr. Wallace (he owned the Book Café), and for many years, Beth thought of him as her father, and only learned long after his death that she and his mother weren't married after all.

Edna is very free with words for her daughter, abusing her both verbally and emotionally. Her primary goal in life is to rob Beth of any happiness she can possible receive, in part because she blames Beth for something that happened when Beth was just a teenager. Edna worked hard to expose Beth and Charlie's plans to kidnap Sheridan and raise her baby as their own while trying to get along with her orangutan caregiver Precious, but although she threatens to expose Beth, especially now that Sheridan has been returned home and Beth still has the baby, she has never done so.

Although she would not return him to his mother, Edna has arranged for some encounters between Sheridan and Martin, and encouraged Sheridan to spend time with the child she believed to be her son. She kept insisting that Sheridan belongs with her son, showing more concern for Sheridan than she ever did for her own daughter. She showed a remarkable streak of kindness toward Beth (her first ever) when she realized how much Beth truly did love that little boy and offered to help Beth escape Harmony with the child. Only moments later, though, DNA tests proclaimed Beth as Little Martin's mother. Later that night, Edna burst in on Alistair and Beth just as they were about to make love, and announced that Alistair was Beth's father from a one-night stand in the 1970s.

Edna eventually realized that Tabitha Lenox was a witch, and had Tabitha and Endora use their powers to make her young and beautiful again -- well, younger and more beautiful. Edna enjoyed her new life, but everything changed again when she was swept out of Harmony on a wave during the tsunami. She eventually turned up in a psychiatric ward, going on about witches and babies who could change people's appearances. She and a fellow patient, Norma Bates, escaped, and after being unsuccessful in killing Tabitha, disappeared from Harmony again until turning up in Rome.