Why I Love Dolly Parton

Happy Birthday today to Dolly Parton. I love Dolly!!! I always have and always will. She is a wonderful caring and generous woman. She is 74 years old today.

I love Dolly for many reasons and I will get to those in a moment. But first if you don’t know her let me tell you a few things about Dolly Parton.

She is an East Tennessee girl, Dolly Rebecca Parton was born January 19, 1946 in a one-room cabin in a very small community in the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee.

Just like me she comes from a large family. She is the fourth child of 12.

Dolly left for Nashville the day after she graduated from High School. She knew exactly what she wanted to do.

Dolly married Carl Thomas Dean on May 30th, 1966 and though they have no children of their own they helped raise several of Dolly’s younger siblings in Nashville. Dolly’s nieces and nephews call her Aunt Granny.

Dolly got her first big break in 1967 when Country music Star Porter Wagoner gave Dolly a regular spot on his weekly T.V. show. He also convinced his record label RCA Victor to sign her. Dolly and Porter recorded several albums together and became one of the country’s most popular and successful double acts. Dolly left his show in 1974 and her hit song, I will Always Love You, was written about her professional break-up with Wagoner.

Dolly has sold over 100 million albums, she has 8 Grammys and 26 number 1 hits.

Dolly is funny, she loves to tell jokes and is always laughing at herself. She doesn’t mind telling you that she loves big hair, big boobs and big sky high heels. She doesn’t pretend that she hasn’t been artificially enhanced. She embraces it.

But there is so much more to Dolly than that. She has also starred in several movies. Steel Magnolias is one of my favorite all time movies.

The Dollywood foundation was created in 1988. This is the same time that Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library was created.

The Imagination Library has given over 130,000,000 free books to children as of 2019, The My People Fund: In November 2016 a terrible fire swept through the Gatlinburg area destroying the homes of over 1000 families. Dolly started a fund, $1000.00 per month would be given to the families who lost their primary residences. Within two weeks the Dollywood foundation created the My People Fund. In May of 2017 $41,000,000 had been raised and given to the families who lost their homes. An additional fundraiser provided a one time scholarship to High School Seniors whose homes were lost to the fire. There is much much more that Dolly has done. She totally believes in giving back to her community.

She is an amazing lady. Happy Birthday Dolly!!! You are so loved!!!!