Minnesota's Root Beer Lady, she ran her own resort a the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness preserve, making thousands of bottles of root beer.
She lived in a lodge in the Isle of Pines on Knife Lake, inheriting the lodge from its previous owner, and remaining there even as the area was transformed into a wilderness preserve.
While all the other residents around left the area, she stayed, the only one for 11 years, with the government finally relenting and proving help to her - but still no electricity, gas or phones.
She was born in Arnold, Pennsylvania, and lived in several orphanages after her mother's death when she was two.
Hubert Humphrey himself intervened on her behalf to have her stay in her lodge in the wilderness preserve.