In the heart of North Carolina, amidst the backdrop of the Methodist Orphanage, a love story began to bloom in this most unlikely of places. Peggy Griffin, at just ten years old, caught sight of a young boy named Billy, igniting a spark that would endure through the next seven decades.

“I thought he was the cutest thing I had ever seen,” Peggy recalls, smiling at the memories from that fateful day. The couple had felt lonely at times, they said. But that day changed everything. It was Sept. 2, 1946, when Billy Griffin stepped onto the playground, unaware that he had already captured Peggy’s heart.

“I came out on the playground and she was on the swings,” Billy said, smiling. “She tells me she saw me and said, ‘I’m gonna marry that guy some day.'” Both lost their fathers when they were very young and were sent with their siblings to live at the orphanage.  “My father died at the age of 37 and left four kids for my mother to support and he had told her if anything ever happens to send us there because he was raised in the same orphanage,” Billy said.

Peggy and Billy Griffin on their wedding day. Photo courtesy of the Griffins

The couple said that after being friends for years, one day, when they were 15, Billy walked Peggy home to her cottage and held her hand. He hasn’t let go since. “We always hold hands no matter where we go or what we’re doing and that started when I first walked down that hill to my cottage where I lived,” Peggy recalls.

He took my hand and that was it, I knew then. I feel safe when he’s with me and I’m holding his hand.”

They both learned their work ethic from the orphanage, they said. “They had a dairy farm and they had us work on it and then I had all kinds of jobs, delivering papers, doing accounting for a body shop and as a senior in high school I started working at an appliance distributor sweeping floors in the warehouse,” Billy said.

The couple married in 1954. Billy became a sales manager at the warehouse and stayed with the company for almost 40 years. He said it allowed them to have a happy life. Peggy felt the same, owing their connection and their shared goals for life as why their marriage has lasted so long.

Peggy and Billy Griffin. Photo by The Templeton of Cary

“We have the same values and the understanding that in order to have a better life for ourselves and our children that we were going to have to work, save our money, spend wisely so that we would be able to one day own our own home for the first time in our lives,” Peggy said.

“It was a good life for us,” Billy said. The couple is celebrating 70 years of marriage, and have two children, five grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren. “Our family is our greatest treasure,” Peggy said. Their journey was fated, they both agreed. “I think it was meant to be. I feel like God sent him to me so I would never be alone.”

Together, they even wrote their own book, “An Exceptional Journey: And the Two Shall Become One.” On nearly every page, the couple are shown holding hands. Watch below as Billy and Peggy talk about their chance meeting at the orphanage and how they fell in love.

Sources: People | News Observer