This is a story based on true events of Mary of The Shanty. Born in a shanty on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River, Mary is a simple girl who was born with an amazing will to live. Pure of heart and keen of mind, she is a survivor.

Mary grows up on a small farm with her father on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River in Victoria. She was just sixteen years old when her father died and left her all alone during the great depression in Australia during the 1930s.

Mary pulls herself up by her bootstraps and sets about fortifying her property against the influx of the poor, destitute, and desperate, people arriving in the area. These people end up in a camp on the commons on the very edge of Mary's land. Mary's father had warned her they would come and had asked her not to overlook the fact that these people were homeless and starving through no fault of their own.

Mary takes produce from her market garden into the monthly market in town and manages to make a living. She is comfortable but hard working. One day as she was returning from the market Mary encounters a few of the camp children. Her heart goes out to them, and she goes to the camp to meet the people.

Then and there she decides to help them to help themselves and a friendly alliance is born. Mary goes through their trials and tribulations with them, she adopts them and they her.

But there are those towns people who don't want these people around and Mary and her group find themselves confronted and challenged on all fronts. She forms a bond with Dan, one of the men and together they forge a partnership which will bring all these people through these toughest of times.

Mary experiences love and friendship along the way but there are those who wish to hurt her and they do it in the worst of ways. But these people hadn't reckoned on the fierceness of the quiet, unassuming man who loves her, and soon regret bringing his ire down on themselves. For he will stop at nothing to keep his loved ones safe.