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Dolly Parton ‘Bathed Once a Week’ & Lived in Shack with Family of 14 — Now Donates Millions to Those in Need

Dolly Parton has maintained her modesty throughout her extraordinary career as a performer, businesswoman, and philanthropist, while accumulating enormous recognition and wealth. Success has unsurprisingly followed her throughout her journey.

Parton knows the hardships of poverty having grown up in a large family. Despite her success as a hugely important Hollywood actress today, she has never forgotten her lowly roots.

In Nashville, Tennessee, in 1955, Dolly Parton posed for a picture. | Source: Getty Images

The genuine Dolly Rebecca Parton, the music icon, was welcomed home by her parents on January 19, 1946, at their home on Locust Ridge in Sevierville, Tennessee. She has eleven siblings and was born in a one-bedroom cottage.

Her father, sharecropper Robert Lee Parton, worked in construction to augment his income because he was unable to attend school and was hence illiterate.

The legendary country singer grew up surrounded by music because of her family’s strong musical heritage. Despite their challenging living conditions, singing brought them together and brought them joy.

In 1965, in Nashville, Tennessee, Dolly Parton posed for a picture. | Source: Getty Images

Parton learned to sing from her mother, the entertainer Avie Lee Owens. She played her a variety of melodies, including Elizabethan ballads and church hymns that had been passed down through the years in her family.

Parton’s grandfather, Jake Robert Owens, composed the hymn “Singing His Praise” while serving as a priest. A number of Parton’s siblings developed a passion for music, and a few of them participated in her family band.

Sam Owens, a musician and singer-songwriter in his own right, was another uncle of Parton. When she was a little child, her uncle—who loved music—was the first to see that she had the ability to become a well-known musician.

Stella Mae, Cassie Nan, the twins Freida Estelle and Rachel Ann, Willadeene, David Wilburn, Coy Denver, Bobby Lee, Robert, and Larry are among Parton’s siblings. After a fight with cancer, Robert passed away in 2021, while Larry passed away at birth.

Parton often assisted her parents in taking care of the younger children because she was the fourth of her twelve siblings. She shared a little roof with her family.

Their log cottage had no running water or electricity at the time, and it only had a living room and one bedroom. The building is still standing today.

Parton has never shied away from talking about her modest upbringing or how it shaped the way she saw the world. She knows what it’s like to be poor; she grew up in a huge household with little money.

In a promotional picture for her 1984 movie “Rhinestone,” Dolly Parton beams. | Source: Getty Images

Parton talked back to The Guardian in 2016 on her early years spent in the remote Tennessee highlands, emphasizing the happy memories from that time in her life. She stated:

“Obviously, there were problems, but I would rather look back on the good times.”

She recalled the times she had spent with her siblings, singing in church, and doing household chores that she didn’t really enjoy. She also remembered all of the laughs she had with her family in the past.

Parton talked about how her siblings would always sing and how she would always attempt to get them to back her up when she pretended to be the lead vocalist on stage, but they would never show any interest.

Parton remembered that her brothers would frequently cram themselves into their small home, which resulted in a lot of mocking and fighting. But they remained a family through all of the turmoil.

The cottage was too small for them to comfortably hang out in, she said, so they spent most of their time outside. The courtyard functioned as an addition for socializing over meals, entertainment, and games.

Parton stated that her family was constantly appreciative of their access to food and a roof. Her parents consistently stressed that other families suffered more than their own, even though it was not exactly what they desired. She remembered:

“I never felt poor, even though we were.”

Parton’s enthusiasm and musical ability would ultimately enable her to become one of the most popular and successful country music artists of all time, despite her family’s humble beginnings.

Growing Up in Poverty

Parton said that although she had happy childhood memories, being poor meant having to endure difficult living circumstances. She and her 14-member family essentially lived in a shanty and had little access to needs.

She revealed that she was just eight years old when she first saw a toilet and bathroom in her aunt’s house and was attracted by them in a March 1978 Playboy magazine interview with journalist Lawrence Grobel.

Parton revealed that she and her siblings were terrified to use the restroom because they believed it would swallow them up, while laughing at how naive and innocent they were at the time. “It was just very strange,” she remembered.

For Parton and her family, taking a daily shower was not an extravagance. Frequently, they would produce their own soap, and occasionally, they would cram themselves into the truck and head to the river to have a bath.

Although there was a brook close by, they all chose to bathe in the river since it served as their “big bath.” As their homemade soap cascaded down the river, they would swim together and give each other’s hair a bath.

Parton compared their river bath to a “bathtub,” jokeing about how filthy they were back then and how it would have left a ring around the Little Pigeon River. For them, taking a river bath was a midsummer rite.

Every member of the household would have a pan of water to wash as much as possible in the winter. Parton answered Grobel’s question about how frequently she and her family took winter baths by saying:

“Well, as the saying goes, we bathed once a week whether we needed to or not.”

Parton started to value bathing more after she started high school. She would bathe every night because her younger siblings would not wash their hands before bed. She disclosed:

The children urinated on me each night. In the bed, we slept three and four. Every night, I would wash. The kids would also wet on me as soon as I went to bed, so I would have to get up in the morning and repeat the entire process.”

On November 5, 2019, in New York City, Dolly Parton is present at the We Are Family Foundation event held at Hammerstein Ballroom. | Found via Getty Images

Parton was not hesitant to express her opinions, explaining that while getting peed on would seem unhygienic to some, the urine actually provided some warmth during the winter.

She remembered how cold it would get at home because she lived in the mountains, and she even mentioned that it was almost enjoyable to get pissed on because the room was just as cold as the outside. They would all curl up in bed, she claimed.

distributing millions

Parton has said that her family is wealthy and content in other ways, despite their lack of material wealth. She became humble as she grew older, and even after becoming wealthy, she never stopped helping those in need, just like her family had done when she was younger. She said:

“My greatest love will always be my family.” Although it might occasionally get lost in the shuffle, family is a part of all I do.

Parton claimed that her family was the inspiration behind her music and that her theme park, Dollywood, and one of its acts, Dixie Stampede, are meant to be places where families can enjoy themselves and spend quality time together.

Parton is a self-made millionaire, with a projected net worth of $375 million in 2022 according to Forbes. Her theme park and ownership rights to music publishing were the main sources of her financial success.

In the 1970s, she refused to share the critically praised song “I Will Always Love You” with Elvis Presley, one of the nearly 3,000 songs that she is in ownership of. When Whitney Houston performed the song in the 1990s, this choice paid off.

In addition, Parton is paid a publishing fee for songs that are sold, aired, or featured in motion pictures. According to Forbes, her songs are valued at $150 million, while her royalties have brought in between $6 and $8 million.

But the source of the music icon’s enormous wealth is her well-known theme park, Dollywood, which is one of Tennessee’s most popular travel destinations. According to reports, it earns $3 million annually.

When the theme park was still known as Pigeon Forge in 1968, the country music artist made an investment in it. Later, she gave it a new name, “Dollywood,” a pun on the word “Hollywood.” There is a water park and a hotel in the park.

In addition, Parton just unveiled Doggy Parton, a pun on her well-known name, as a new business. The business, which makes apparel and toys for dogs, was founded because of her passion for animals.

Parton learned the value of sharing her accomplishment with others from her early experiences. She is a businessman and singer in addition to being involved in a number of social and humanitarian organizations and having given millions of dollars to people in need.

In order to collect $13 million for the survivors of the East Tennessee wildfires that devastated Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg in 2016, Parton teamed together with a group of musicians.

At “Smoky Mountains Rise: A Benefit for the My People Fund,” other well-known performers included Chris Stapelton, Kenny Rogers, Lauren Alaina, Alison Krauss, Reba McEntire, Cyndi Lauper, and Chris Young.

Following her niece’s leukemia treatment at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Parton donated $1 million to the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital in 2017.

Apart from extending monetary support to individuals impacted by natural calamities, Parton made a noteworthy impact on the healthcare industry through her magnanimous financial contributions.

When she gave $1 million to vaccine research in 2020 amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, which affected people all over the world, she made headlines. Her input was useful in developing the Moderna vaccine.

Parton’s unwavering commitment to advancing early childhood literacy is another well-known quality. Each month, she provides over a million youngsters with free books through her nonprofit initiative, Imagination Library.

In order to assist kids in learning to read and write, Parton and Robert Lee established a non-profit organization in 1995, drawing inspiration from her father’s personal experience with illiteracy. Although it began in eastern Tennessee, it has expanded to assist children in all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia.

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Other nations, like Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, have also been affected by the literacy initiative. Parton announced at the Library of Congress in 2018 that the initiative has distributed its 100 millionth book.

When the campaign first began, Parton just wanted to support her father and her hometown; she had no idea it would become so popular. She said with joy, “But then it just took its own wings, and I guess it was meant to be.”

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Parton was also pleased that her father was quite proud of having contributed something valuable. Before he died in 2000, he had the opportunity to witness the results of their labor.

Her goals for the Imagination Library are also very lofty. She acknowledged having lofty goals and wishing to donate one billion books in her lifetime.

Despite having a difficult upbringing, Parton never lost sight of the value of community and family. She made the most of her riches by giving millions of dollars a year to a range of humanitarian causes, such as health, education, and disaster relief.

Her lowly beginnings instilled in her the virtues of perseverance, hard effort, and the unifying power of music. She also recalls the love, laughter, and happiness that characterized her childhood home and the family who stood by her side no matter what as she reflects on her life.