Real love story?

According to several websites, Alvin York met Gracie Williams c.1914, and she apparently was instrumental in his rediscovery of his Christian faith. Certainly some of the relationship depicted in the movie is Hollywood invention (as is the "lightning strike" conversion), but the relationship between Alvin and Gracie York was the Real Deal. He died in 1964, and she survived him by almost 20 years to the day.

Whether or not the relationship between Alvin and Gracie is truthful or not (which it is), there is definitely a purpose in its addition to the movie. If not for the second plot between Alvin, Gracie, the land-seller, and the guy who bought the property in the lowlands (can't remember the last two names), the movie would have been missing something very important. This showed Alvin's spirit of never giving up and shows how dedicated he was to something, whether it be land or the US Army, once he was involved in it. Even though the age difference is startling today, it was acceptable in the mountain regions of yesteryear. For people to survive, a man had to be well-grounded in his trade or rich before he married so that he could support his family. Alvin even asks his mother, though not directly, what he needed materially to support a family on his own. He asks her what his father, and his father's father had when they married. Alvin is determined to give Gracie better, and so he does. This devotion carries over to the Army when he is devoted to saving the lives of many by killing the Germans.