“The hills were alive with wildflowers and I
Was as wild, even wilder than they
For at least I could run
They just died in the sun
And I refused to just wither in place” – Dolly Parton, “Wildflowers”
Dolly Rebecca Parton Dean, known to many by just a mononym “Dolly,” because she was that cool, was a master songwriter, an impeccably powerful singer and just an all-around great American artist, but she was an even better human being. Perhaps the greatest song that she wrote was the life she lived.
When news of Dolly’s passing came through last Tuesday, I nearly lost the breath from my lungs when I saw a simple one-line headline on my news ticker on my MacBook announcing her passing. It should not have been as a surprise, as she was, in fact, 80 years old and had some reported health issues earlier in the year that had sidelined her and then radio silence. Still, it was a shock, all the same. Dolly, as I referred to her in conversing with a friend after the news broke, was kind of like the Jimmy Carter of music. Even if you didn’t care for her musical output, you knew that she was a truly great person, just like if you didn’t care for President Carter’s policies, there was no denying his brilliance and heart of service.
As a musician and lifelong fan of music, I’ve loved her work through most of my life. She was the second artist, who, at a wee age (five years old, I think it was) I recognized as being who she was from hearing one of her songs. Johnny Cash was the first one, by the way. That memory also proved further bittersweet amid the news, as it felt like one of the last living links to the life I had as a child with my grandparents was now gone. We spent a lot of time together listening to stuff like her Coat of Many Colors album together, as well as the duets she made with Porter Wagoner. Her song “Wildflowers” was a frequent on many mix-tapes my granddad made, and it was at about age 13, riding around with him and running errands, that I realized just how beautiful and poetic a song it was. Keep in mind that 13-year-old me was, on my own time, not listening to anything close to Dolly Parton, and anything not “metal” back then was deemed uncool in my 13-year-old mind, but Dolly’s music transcended all of that, and the reply of many in the punk and metal community to her passing only begins to demonstrate how universally loved she was.
She was born to extreme poverty in rural Tennessee and wrote her first song at age six and performed regularly on a television show by the time she was 10. That sentence, gleaned from her Wikipedia article is actually true, as I’ve read her poignant (and often hilarious) autobiography several times.
Dolly will be remembered as one of our greatest songwriters and entertainers, but her finest legacy might not have anything to do with the stage, or recording studios or the metrics of chart success. I have a feeling that in the coming weeks, there will be torrents of stories to emerge attesting to her kindness. Just think about the millions of children who opened their mailboxes, since 1995, to find a book with their own name printed on it.
She established the Imagination Library back then as a literacy program for children in her hometown, and was inspired by her own father, who could not read or write. She managed to transform that program from a modest, local undertaking to an international movement, and to this date, it has distributed more than 300 million books, giving children the opportunity, from birth to age five, to build a home library, regardless of family income level.
For brevity’s sake, I won’t cite all of the humanitarian work she did, but there’s another example that has stuck with me through the years. In 2016, when wildfires ravaged her beloved Smoky Mountains, she helped provide monthly assistance to families who had lost their homes. In 2024 after Hurricane Helene tore through the South, she and her businesses put forth $2 million to relief efforts.
Dolly supported scholarships, hospitals, pediatric healthcare and medical research, and it was never about the amount she gave, but the spirit in which she gave it.
Dolly remembered growing up impoverished in the mountains of East Tennessee, but she never romanticized deprivation or pretended that hardship inherently made her life noble. She understood that people needed things like books, education, medicine, shelter and the dignity of practical assistance. Struggling folks were never statistics or props to her. They were people with dignity.
The rhinestones, towering platinum blonde hair and quick wit made her unmistakable, and her songs gave her immortality, but her kindness made her essential. In an increasingly bitter and divided cultural climate here in these United States, Dolly possessed the rare ability to be loved across nearly every boundary. She was proudly Southern without coming across as a narrow-minded caricature. She was deeply rooted in, and passionate about her faith, but never used it as a weapon. Dolly always had a way of making you feel as though there was enough to go around. I’m brought mind of a conversation I had about her with my friend Amy the day after she passed. Neither of us had bothered to look up what her net worth was, but it never felt like with Dolly Parton that hoarding money was paramount. Instead, creating a seat at her table for everyone and fostering a sense of belonging for everyone around her was what was important.
The way to grieve someone like Dolly Parton isn’t just to simply miss them, or to play her records, but to become more of what we saw that we loved in her. Use your gifts wisely and joyfully, remember where you came from and open the door for someone else. That’s some kind of legacy right there.
For those who want to support some of the causes Dolly Parton was passionate about, donations can be made in her memory to the Dolly Parton Imagination Library by accessing the URL: https://donate.imaginationlibrary.com . Donations for the Dollywood Foundation and the My People Fund, which help with scholarships for high school seniors and housing assistance, respectively, can also be made through the site.
Chris Edwards is editor of the Tyler County Booster, a sister newspaper in the Polk County Publishing Group. He can be reached at cedwards@polkcountypublishing.com.
