‘She was one of us’: To Tennesseans, Dolly Parton’s death hits home

NASHVILLE, Tennessee – Before she became a country music icon, Dolly Parton belonged to Tennessee.

Her rise to fame started, of course, with her music: an album cover featuring the view from an eastern Tennessee porch, songs about the humble lessons of her impoverished childhood, the performances at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.

But even as her star power took her all over the world, she made a point to keep coming home in different ways.

She donated millions of dollars to disaster relief after devastating fires in east Tennessee and crucial vaccine research at Vanderbilt University.

She built the sprawling amusement park Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, near her home town, Sevierville. And before her autobiographical musical headed to New York, it had its world premiere in Nashville.

“She stayed true to us,” said Christy Farris, 51, who drove to her job on Aug 25 at a gift shop in downtown Nashville playing Parton’s 1977 song Here You Come Again with the windows rolled down. “I don’t know if anybody could replace her, or even come close.”

So as the nation mourned Parton’s death on Aug 25, the grief was perhaps the most profound in Tennessee. The idolisation of Parton – or just Dolly, as she is known there – often seemed to be the one thing everyone could agree on.

“She inspired Tennesseans to be better, because she was one of us,” said Beverly Keel, the dean of the College of Media and Entertainment at Middle Tennessee State University.

She added: “I can’t express the profound grief Tennessee will experience this week.”

Parton, who was 80, had been dealing with health challenges for months. She died in Nashville, a spokesperson said on Aug 25, the announcement reverberating throughout the state.

In Nashville, it is hard not to catch a glimpse of Parton’s influence. Her signature visage – piled blonde wig, beauty mark, wide grin – is captured on murals, T-shirts and pins. Her songs are on repeat in stores and at music venues.

“She just always seemed immortal,” said Scout Gillett, 31, a singer who was in town to perform at an East Nashville venue and found herself grappling with grief in the Country Music Hall of Fame’s exhibit on Parton. “It’s just amazing how many people she touched.”

At the Hall of Fame, a line formed as people filled out a condolences book for Parton’s family. Flags were lowered to half-staff, and politicians and artists alike offered their condolences.

Flowers were laid at her star on a walkway across from the Hall of Fame. The honky-tonks along lower Broadway performed her songs in tribute, while cars blasted the 1980 track 9 To 5 and other songs.

“She stayed so respectable and didn’t really waver from who she truly was from the age of 10 until the age of 80,” said Erin Russell, who was visiting Nashville from Connecticut and had inherited a love of Parton from her Alabama-born father.

A friend had reached out, she said, wondering if being in Nashville on Aug 25 was the equivalent of being in London when Princess Diana died.

Farther from downtown, flowers piled up near a mural in East Nashville. People sniffled back tears, as one young woman sketched oil pastel butterflies in a notebook. It was a break, she said, from mourning a woman who had been a fixture since childhood.

And at the Grand Ole Opry on the night of Aug 25, the show opened with Opry member Rhonda Vincent performing the 1971 song Coat Of Many Colors. She softly told the crowd: “This is for Dolly.”

Throughout the night, performers sprinkled in their own memories of Parton.

“If you were a Tennessean, you were probably touched by her in some way,” said Charlie Mattos, a local radio announcer.

In East Tennessee, where Parton had spent her childhood and many years building Dollywood, there was an even more profound sense of loss.

The city of Sevierville, where Parton was born, said in a statement that “the world has lost an icon, but Sevierville has lost a daughter who never stopped loving her home”.

Natalie Tyson, 41, said she was particularly moved by Parton’s contributions after a wildfire in Sevier County killed more than a dozen people in 2016. At the time, Tyson had just moved to the area from Florida, and she lost about half of her belongings in the fire, she said.

“Dolly really came through and helped out a lot, and that really cemented her in my heart and the sense of community,” said Tyson, who has a tattoo of Parton on her thigh.

On Aug 25, hundreds of people gathered at a statue of her on the lawn of the old Sevier County Courthouse to leave flowers, balloons and other mementos.

Hannah Sanderson, 35, brought her children – Evie, 10, and Owen, 8 – to the statue and placed yellow roses in the growing memorial.

“If anybody deserves to have respects paid, it’s Dolly,” she said. NYTIMES