By Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne

Growing up in East Tennessee, it’s nearly impossible to escape Dolly Parton’s influence. She’s everywhere—her music, her image, her hair. And there is, as sometimes happens with celebrities, a sense of ownership over her.

Dolly grew up just 65 miles down the road from where I did, and while Tennessee is often associated with Nashville, where we grew up was most certainly not. Dolly isn’t just country, she’s mountain. She got out and made something of herself, but she never forgot her people. Where I grew up, there’s no greater sin than forgetting where you came from.

As a child, worshiping at the altar of Dolly was going to Dollywood, Dolly’s theme park. Amazingly, my second-grade class won a trip there by virtue of reading the most books (of our school or the state? I don’t remember). Going to Dollywood was the first time, even at that young age, I thought that Dolly Parton might be an angel.

We had packed lunches but brought enough money for lemonade and funnel cakes. To this day, I don’t think there is a better funnel cake in the world that the one at Dollywood. After the cakes, I rode the log flume so many times my shorts didn’t dry, and I waddled through my last hour at the park, my legs chafed. Still, it was worth every minute; I discovered a love for roller coasters (and the aforementioned funnel cakes) thanks to Dolly.

For a girl like me, growing up where I did, that theme park was an oasis. From that time on, I knew Dolly Parton was an angel.

But she’s least known for her most angelic work. Dolly, whose father was illiterate, started a once-a-month giving library in 1995 for children ages zero to five in her corner of East Tennessee. Dolly realized...read more