An Exceptional Journey: And the Two Shall Become One

For Peggy Patton and her six siblings, life during the Depression in Franklin County, North Carolina, is a hard one lived in extreme poverty. Somehow they managed to get by...until the night in 1940 when her father falls ill and subsequently suffers a fatal heart attack. William "Billy" Ray Griffin, Jr., a depression-error baby himself, is born in Durham, North Carolina, one year earlier than Peggy. One of four children, his family struggles to keep food on the table when, in 1945, five years after the death of Richard Patton, Billy's father, William Sr., also suffers a fatal heart attack. Their mothers, ill-equipped to work their way out of such dire circumstances, have only one real alternative at their disposal: find homes for their children, either with relatives or, in the case of both Peggy and Billy, at an orphanage. While initially not the greatest of news, for both Peggy and Billy the decision will wind up shaping their lives in incredibly positive ways. Peggy arrives first at the Methodist Orphanage of Raleigh, North Carolina, at the age of six with her younger sister in tow. Now receiving three meals a day, her own bed, and an education with many fellow students and orphans to play with, Peggy quickly begins to not only appreciate her new home, but to thrive in it. As she grows older, a new resident she will come to know as Billy moves into the boys' domitories. By the time they reach high school, Peggy is a starter for the girls' basketball team and Billy makes honorary all-conference as a player for the football team. And together, they make one of the orphanage's cutest couples. But when Billy graduates a year before her, they can only wonder what the future has in store. A heartwarming memoir of perserverence, hope and the extraordinary circumstances that bring us together and tear us apart, An Exceptional: And the Two Shall Become One will lift your spirits with a tale that could happen in America.