When the big woods of Wisconsin becomes a difficult spot for hunting, Charles Ingalls reluctantly decides to move his family, pioneering west. Their life on the farm in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, in the 1870s and 1880s is full of adventure, tragedy, and triumph. Based on the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Mrs. Edna Garrett, housemother and dietitian at the Eastland School, teaches a group of girls in her charge how to solve those problems that every teenager has to face.

Young high school couple Darcy Elliot and Stan Bobrucz are one year from graduation, with promising futures ahead of them. But their paths take a drastic turn when Darcy becomes pregnant. Unwilling to go through an abortion or an adoption — despite their parents' pleas — Darcy and Stan decide to sacrifice their college experiences and degrees in order to keep and raise the baby. After a quick marriage, the two realize it won't be as easy as they thought.

A woman leaves her husband after the death of her child to teach deaf children how to speak. Her own child was deaf and although she has no formal training she successfully teaches one boy.

The relationship among a divorced man, his incurably ill teenage son, and his long-estranged father is explored when the youngster joins his dad for one final summer vacation and they end up at the grandfather's vineyard where he reconciles the two older men.