Filmmaker Jack Ofield writes "Elizabeth Proper lived all of her life in the Taconic Hills of eastern New York State. She harvested her own white oak to make her baskets. She was in her 'forties when I filmed her in 1972 and had a six-year-old daughter. There had been a community of basket makers in the region, but she was the only one left."

Jack: “We lived near Hudson, NY and one day I saw these beautiful split white oak baskets in a store window and learned who made them. Elizabeth Proper lived nearby. I called upon her four or five times to ask about filming, but she said no through a crack in the door. Finally, she said yes, ‘just to get rid of you."