We Will Always Love You, Dolly

I don’t recall what I was doing the day Elvis Presley died. I was 11 years old and it was the middle of summer, but I can tell you that it shocked the world. I remember watching the breaking news when it was announced, I remember neighbors coming out of their houses crying, my next door neighbor starting playing his albums, and the world mourned for weeks. August 16, 1977 was a sad day.

49 years, 1 week and 2 days later, here we are again. Dolly Parton has died. With tears in my eyes as I write this the world lost what Garth Brooks called Country Music’s GOAT! The world is mourning again.

Growing up in the hills of Tennessee, she was the 4th of 12 children born to Robert “Lee” and Avie Parton, she began performing as a child, she was 13 when she first appeared at the Grand Ole Opry where she was introduced as the little girl from East Tennessee by Johnny Cash.

She graduated high school on a Friday and by Saturday she had moved to Nashville. Stopping at a laundry mat that day she met Carl Thomas Dean, her future husband; they were married for almost 60 years until he passed away in March of 2025.

We can talk about her accomplishments, from singing and songwriting, tv and movies, to opening an amusement park called Dollywood not far from her hometown roots and her non-profit Dollywood foundation that was set up originally to improve educational outcomes among children in her home county of Sevier County, Tennessee. How she started Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library that sends free books to children from 0-5 years old. And her giving goes on and on.

Dolly was around 9 years old when she saw a woman in town with big hair, colorful makeup and short skirts - the adults called her “trashy” but Dolly saw as the prettiest person she had ever seen and that’s what she wanted to be when she grew up!

My favorite thing about her was her comedic side, how when Curley Putnum wrote Dumb Blonde, her first single hit - she was famous for saying I‘m not offended by dumb blonde jokes, because I know I’m not dumb and I also know that I’m not blonde. In 2003, Oprah Winfrey asked what kind of cosmetic surgery she had undergone? Parton replied that it was imperative in keeping with her famous image. She repeatedly joked saying “it takes a lot of money to look this cheap!” When asked about future surgeries she said “If I see something sagging, bagging or dragging, I’ll get it nipped, tucked or sucked.”

When asked by a teenager what advice she would give American teenagers she replied “act like it’s raining every day and wear your rubbers.”

I love the fact that she says she entered a Dolly Look Alike contest and lost.

Did you know that Dolly the Sheep was named after her, since the sheep was cloned from a cell taken from an adult ewe’s mammary gland?

Dolly will be missed, her songs mean so much to so many. RIP Dolly Rebecca Parton Dean! We Will always love you!!!