Love Mary is based on the true story of Dr. Mary Groda Lewis. When we first meet Mary, she’s neither a Lewis nor a doctor, but instead simply a troubled young girl. Diagnosed as retarded and incorrigible, Mary is shunted off to a reform school. Here, counselor Rachel Martin discovers that Mary’s handicap is not retardation but dyslexia. After years of intense and compassionate therapy, Mary is allowed to re-enter the outside world–where two illegitimate pregnancies and a debilitating stroke do not dissuade the girl from her goal of becoming a doctor.