Wind at My Back was loosely based on the Max Braithwaite books Never Sleep Three in a Bed and The Night We Stole the Mountie's Car.
When Jack dies after being stung by hornets, Honey is forced to leave her children, Hubert, Henry, and Violet, with her domineering mother-in-law while she searches for work.
Jack finds the visit intolerable with his overbearing mother, May, and retreats with his family to their summer cabin by the lake.
May also forces Honey to give up her baby daughter, Violet, to the care of distant relatives, telling her that the judge would find her unfit should she try to fight it.
To recuperate, she reluctantly went back to living at May's, and is briefly romantically pursued by a cocky local constable from England.
At the last minute, Max receives a job offer that could keep them in New Bedford, something Honey's second son, Henry, or Fat, really wants to do.
His youth and naivete allowed him to often see the good of his grandmother May's heart and he openly explained he did not want to leave because he knew it would hurt her if they did.
Due to her deeply held Protestant ways, she is completely intolerant and unaccepting of Honey's Catholicism and any effects on the boys, something about which she is not quiet.
In return, one of the skills she learned from the boys and Honey was how to dismiss May and to simply state how things are to her face without feeling completely crushed by her.
After seeing Honey's little family fight May so hard to stay together, Grace finds her courage and decides it is time for her to move out.
In Season 5, Jim decides he is not yet ready to move on from the loss of his wife, and Grace falls for Vanaver 'Van' Mainwairing, a mysterious stranger who arrives in town.
His misadventures include pranking a moonshiner at Halloween, sneaking out repeatedly with a gang to steal furniture, jumping off a train trestle, and visiting a billiard hall.
During the Christmas special, Hub is attending seminary, but his attention is drawn away from his studies by a young Jewish girl, who escaped from Austria.
In the second season, Fat makes friends with a tomboy named Maisey McGinty who works at her grandfather's pawn shop.
As Fat gets older, he finds himself getting into trouble frequently, such as breaking into the radio station at night with Maisey, and trying to steal the car of a pawn shop client.
Most of his interest in law enforcement is caused by movies and fictional stories until he meets a police officer, during the Christmas special.
Max (James Carroll) is a local social studies teacher and coach in town who takes a liking to Honey.
Max is a freelance writer, who sometimes writes crime stories or pieces for the local radio station, in addition to being school vice-principal.
In the second season, Bob tries to save the mine from bankruptcy, but his long work hours put on strain on his marriage and make him irritable.
Unable to find work, Jack realizes his only choice is to return to his hometown of New Bedford, where his domineering mother May Bailey runs the Silver Dome mine.
Honey marries school teacher Max Sutton (who had clashed with May Bailey over inviting out-of-town hobos to the local shelter which she directs), they move into the New Bedford hotel, and she opens a beauty parlor on Main Street.
The season ends as the mine is shut down, and Grace and Del Sutton (Max's immature bum of a brother, working as an auto mechanic) starting a very rocky romance, after her earlier fiancé had left town.
Meanwhile, Honey, trying to help unfortunate people, falls ill from influenza and pneumonia and must leave town for medical treatment.
Grace grows closer to school teacher Jim Flett while exploring journalism, and eventually he kisses her in the last episode of the season.
Meant to tie up some of the loose ends left when the series was cancelled, A Wind at My Back Christmas takes place in December 1938.
Hub is studying to become a priest, but starts to have second thoughts as he spends more and more time with music student Anna Schiller (Meredith Henderson).
When he finds out her status as a Jewish refugee who escaped from Austria following the Nazi annexation, Hub takes her to New Bedford to keep her from being deported, but faces hostility from his mother, who wants him to become a priest, and his brother, who resents his success.
[2] In 2016, Sullivan Entertainment announced it would launch their own streaming service called Gazebo TV that would feature the Wind at My Back series among other titles produced by the company.
The first season of "Wind at My Back" was shot on location in several towns near Toronto, including Tottenham, Bowmanville, Orono[5] and Port Perry.
After the first season, Sullivan Entertainment built the town's exterior on the backlot of their studio to minimize the time and cost of transportation.