Dolly Parton

"The biggest heartaches in my life have all been because I wanted people to love me more than they were willing or able to."
~ Dolly Parton
It was January 1946, in a small one-room cabin in the beautiful mountains of East Tennessee. Dolly Rebecca Parton, the fourth of 12 children, was born to a dirt poor sharecropper.

 "My daddy couldn't afford to pay Dr. Thomas for delivering me," Parton explained, "so he gave him a sack of cornmeal." 

 Parton grew up with a "head full of dreams and a house full of love."

 With the voice of an angel, Dolly Parton signed her first recording contract at 11 and released her first single Puppy Love in 1959. By 2017, the talented star had recorded almost 90 albums.

 "Faith, hope, and love are the three most important words in my life," she wrote in her autobiography, "I believe it is faith that helps you achieve those things you hope for and that love is the reason for it all."

 With a smile of radiance, the blonde beauty was inducted into the Country Music Hall Of Fame in September 1999. "Movie Star" Parton has her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and "Hometown Girl" Parton has a bronze sculpture on the courthouse lawn in Sevier County.

 "Leave something good in every day," she said. And Dolly does just that.

 She created Dollywood theme park in Tennessee (1986), which revitalized her hometown's economy, and established the Dollywood Foundation for literacy and continuing education (1988).

 A beautiful force of love, she said, "I accept everybody for who they are."

 Her Imagination Library (1995) promotes reading among children. Started in her hometown, the program has grown like kudzu, helping provide free monthly hardcover books in over 1600 communities to over 1,000,000 children each and every month. 

 "I feel the same today as I did when we enrolled the first child in Sevier County," she said. "I feel blessed to be in a position to help any child to learn to read, and probably more importantly to love to read!"
Keep believing in the power of love.

Copyright © 1999-2017 MsCator, All Rights Reserved

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