Written By D.J. Reiter
Some people become famous. A very small number become beloved. And then there
was Dolly Parton.
Her death feels different because Dolly seemed to occupy a place in American life that
no one else could. She transcended generations, geography, politics, religion, and even
musical taste. You didn’t have to listen to country music to love Dolly Parton. She
belonged to everyone. We lost someone who had become part of the fabric of the
country, one of those exceedingly rare people Americans of almost every background
could agree was simply good.
Calling her a country music legend feels insufficient. So does singer, songwriter,
actress, entrepreneur, philanthropist, or humanitarian. She was all of those things.
But Dolly Parton was something more.
She was an American icon in the truest sense of the word. She was the best of
America.
She came from almost unimaginable poverty in the Great Smoky Mountains of East
Tennessee, one of 12 children raised in a small cabin. She took that experience and
turned it into art without ever treating the people or place she came from as something
she needed to escape or apologize for.
Then she became one of the greatest songwriters ever.. That often gets lost beneath
the wigs, rhinestones, movies, and enormous personality.
“Coat of Many Colors.” “Jolene.” “9 to 5.” “My Tennessee Mountain Home.” “I Will
Always Love You.”
Dolly could write about poverty without condescension, heartbreak without melodrama,
and ambition without pretending success came easily. Her songs didn’t survive because
people were nostalgic for Dolly Parton. They survived because they were great songs.
But even that isn’t what made Dolly so important. It was what she did with everything
that success gave her.
Her father, Lee Parton, never learned to read or write. Dolly adored him and wondered
what opportunities he might have had if he’d received an education.
So she did something about it.
In 1995, she created the Imagination Library in her home county in Tennessee, mailing
free books to young children. What began in one rural community eventually put
hundreds of millions of books into the hands of children around the world.
There are adults today who learned to love reading because Dolly Parton mailed books
to their homes as children. There will be kids born after her death who learn to read
because of something she started more than 30 years ago.
That’s immortality of a different kind. And she never stopped.
When wildfires devastated her native Tennessee, she created the My People Fund and
provided direct assistance to families who lost their homes. After Hurricane Helene, she
donated millions to relief efforts. When researchers at Vanderbilt University were
working on what became Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, Dolly gave them $1 million.
She supported children’s hospitals, scholarships, schools, and countless other causes.
And somehow, in an increasingly divided America, Dolly accomplished something else
that seems almost impossible now. Everybody loved her.
Country fans loved her. Rock musicians loved her. Grandparents loved her. Kids knew
her as the Book Lady. Rural America claimed her. Hollywood claimed her.
She could be deeply religious without insisting everyone else live exactly as she did.
She could be proud of where she came from while embracing people whose lives were
completely different from hers.
She understood something we could probably stand to remember right now: Kindness
doesn’t require agreement.
People saw the enormous blond hair, rhinestones, high heels, and exaggerated
femininity and occasionally mistook the packaging for the person. Dolly knew exactly
what she was doing.
Behind it was a brilliant songwriter and remarkably shrewd businesswoman who
maintained control of her work, built an entertainment empire, and turned her success
into jobs and opportunity for the Appalachian community where her story began.
She never needed to become somebody else to become successful. She made the
world accept Dolly Parton exactly as Dolly Parton intended to be.
That’s part of why her death hits harder than the deaths of most famous people.
Her music meant something to millions. But her examples meant something more.
She represented a version of America that we desperately want to believe in.
Work hard. Remember where you came from. Laugh at yourself. Treat people with
dignity. If you’ve been fortunate, help someone who hasn’t. Stand up for people who are
being treated as less than everyone else. And when you see a need you have the ability
to fill, fill it.
Somewhere today, a child is opening a book that arrived because of Dolly Parton.
Somewhere, a family in Tennessee is living a better life because she never forgot the
mountains where she grew up.
Somewhere, someone is hearing “Jolene” for the first time.
And somewhere, any kid who feels different can know that one of the most
beloved people in American culture believed they deserved to be loved exactly as they
are.
We lost a generational talent.
We lost an innovator.
We lost one of the greatest songwriters.
We lost an American icon.
We lost one of our greatest people. But more importantly, we lost someone who showed
us how to turn extraordinary talent and success into an equally extraordinary amount of
good.
There will never be another Dolly.
May her memory be a blessing.
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