Dolly Parton’s Incredible Rise: From Barefoot Mountain Girl to Global Icon
Dolly Parton’s journey from a dirt-floor cabin in Tennessee to the stages of the Grand Ole Opry and beyond is nothing short of legendary — and yet, it’s her past that continues to define her.
Born on January 19, 1946, in a remote cabin along the Little Pigeon River, Dolly entered the world under extraordinary circumstances. Delivered by Dr. Robert F. Thomas during a snowstorm, her family could only afford to pay the doctor with cornmeal. Dolly’s now-famous line: “I’ve been raking in the dough ever since,” speaks to her humility and sense of humor about her humble beginnings.
But life in Locust Ridge was anything but easy.
As one of 12 children, Dolly learned early about sacrifice and survival. “We were dirt poor,” she has said. “No electricity, no running water.” The family relied on wild game for food and their faith to get through harsh winters. One particularly brutal storm nearly cost them their lives. “We were trapped. No food, no heat,” Dolly told Entertainment Tonight. “We thought we were going to die.”
Perhaps no moment reveals the resilience of the Partons more than what happened when young Dolly cut three of her toes nearly off on a broken Mason jar. With no hospital nearby — and no money even if there had been — her mother sewed her toes back on by hand, using cornmeal to stop the bleeding and kerosene to disinfect the wound.
“I still walk on them to this day,” Dolly told Dr. Oz in 2017.
Dolly’s family also endured emotional trauma. When she was just nine, her baby brother Larry died shortly after birth. Assigned to care for him, Dolly blamed herself. “It crushed me,” she later admitted. “I had already made a connection.”
Despite these hardships, her family’s love never wavered. Her mother encouraged her to dream and sing, while her father — despite being illiterate — inspired Dolly to champion education later in life.
In 1995, she created Imagination Library, a book-gifting program that now operates worldwide. “It was for my Daddy,” she told People. “He never had a chance to learn to read, but he was the smartest man I ever knew.”
From that cabin in the Smoky Mountains to country music superstardom and a $650 million empire, Dolly Parton has never forgotten where she came from — and she’s made sure the world won’t either.
