WWII Veteran lived on one penny a day. He then rose to prominence as a Houston attorney.

HOUSTON, Texas -- 101-year-old Ralph Abercia has loved to dance his entire life. His secret to a long life is anchored in his beliefs in God, family, and country.

Born into a Lebanese immigrant family during the Great Depression, Ralph and his family survived and thrived on hard work, caring for others, and for a time, with just a penny a day.

Ralph's daughter Sharon, along with her husband John Evans, is putting her Dad's inspiration into words with a book titled "Only a Penny."

Sharon said, "I always wanted to tell my Dad's story. It's a story of profound poverty and how he came from that to where he is today."

Evans adds, "Only a penny was survival. We see a penny and the ground, and we just walk by it. To them that was a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread."

At a young age, Ralph and his brother walked miles down North Main to the Rice Hotel in downtown Houston. They would sell the bread their mother baked overnight to the wealthy for pennies. Pennies that meant everything.

Ralph served in World War II as an Army/Air Force Corporal stationed in England. When the war ended, he entered the University of Houston Law School, where he met the love of his life, Adelene. They've been married for 74 years and raised four children.

As a Houston lawyer Ralph would fight for those in need. He had been in their shoes and was ready to help all.

"He didn't wait for others to come to him; he went to them. He was simple and humble. He loved people, and people loved him," Sharon said.