I was fortunate to meet Lethy Hicks when I was first studying photography. She lived alone in a remote area of Western North Carolina called, “Big Bend." She lived a simple life and more primitively than I was accustomed to. To hold back the cold, her log cabin was heated with a 55 gallon steel drum wood-stove. Her water trickled in through a small PVC pipe snaked through a kitchen window and into a rusty porcelain sink fed by a nearby stream. Her garden in the spring, was tilled in the rough, rocky soil but was always abundant. Lethy had endured times of poverty and difficult circumstances. She was a survivor who kept her sense of humor and self-respect and remained at "Big Bend" all her life. For me, the portrait of Lethy reveals her pride and defiant strength. She is pictured leaning into an old apple tree planted by her parents when she was a young girl.