AllMovie

Journalist William Allen White, the Pulitzer Prize-winning sage of Emporia, Kansas, lost his beloved 16-year-old daughter Mary when she was killed in a horseback-riding accident in 1921. The grieving White then wrote a newspaper editorial celebrating his daughter's life, which he printed in his own Emporia Gazette and which has since attained classic status. The made-for-TV Mary White uses the editorial as a reference point for a series of flashbacks, recalling Mary's last year on earth. The events are put in context with the social temper of the times, as both father and daughter fight against such exigencies as segregation and in favor of Women's Suffrage. Ed Flanders plays White, while Kathleen Beller is seen as Mary, and Fionnuala Flannagan portrays Mrs. White. Refreshingly free of phony sentimentality, the moving, inspirational Mary White premiered on November 18, 1977