Based on the true story of Catherine Marshall's mother, Leonora Whitaker Wood, Christy tells the story of Christy Huddleston who left home at 19 to teach school in the Smoky Mountains. There she came to know and love the wild mountain people with their fierce pride, their dark superstitions, their terrible poverty, and their yearning for beauty and truth. Christy found her faith severely challenged in these primitive surroundings; and, confronted with two young men of unique strength and needs, she found her own growing yearnings challenged by love.