30days30years

Some call it trespassing

I love the name Ruth. Particularly the way those in the south pronounce it. It rolls of the tongue so nicely.

I spent today with Larry’s ex-wife, Ruth. She owned a tour company for many years but has since sold her business and now works as a part-time tour guide. She often takes tourists past the site where Dolly Parton was born en route to the Smoky’s and today agreed to give me the “VIP Dolly Parton Tour”.

Dolly was born right on the Pigeon River in an area called Locust Ridge where her father used to grow tobacco on the property of a lady named Martha Williams. Part of Ms William’s home and barn still stand but sadly Dolly’s first home is gone.

We were joking as I posed for this shot that my life is now complete given I have stood on both the birth place of Jesus and Dolly Parton! Ha!

From there we did a little cross country hike through a man’s farm to reach the entrance to one of Dolly’s current homes. Some call it trespassing, I like to think of it more as visiting a neighbour given Ruth lives just across the way!!

The road entering her home is blocked off to through traffic so we walked for about 40 minutes up a muddy track until we came to it. The estate sits on the land which once occupied the first home Dolly’s parents owned. She moved there when she was about five. It was a run down old thing and the replacement home which stands there today is just as modest. Apparently her brother built the new home and once it was complete he covered it with an old tin roof etc to keep Dolly humble.

Unfortunately there was no buzzer to announce my arrival otherwise I’m sure she would have let me in!!!! I probably should have left a note!

Ruth told me some great stories about Dolly and how she herself remembers Dolly as a little girl peeling beans on her grandparents’ porch. She also told me the story of how Dolly came to appear on the Cas Walker Show as a 10-year-old. Cas Walker became a multi-millionaire selling groceries on radio and TV in Knoxville. Her uncle Bill Owens introduced her to Cas one day and she said to him, “Mr Walker, I want to work for you”. He shook her hand and said, “Well, now, a lot of people come to me and say ‘Mr Walker I want a job’, but you’re the first one who has ever said ‘I want to work for you’. You’ve got yourself a job.”

The owner of Firehouse Sub (a restaurant chain where Larry shouted me lunch today) was also telling us a couple of Dolly stories over a dill pickle or two. He said she was given an honourary doctorate from one of the local universities and when the dean invited her on stage he welcomed her as Doctor D. She got up and said, “Well you’ve got that wrong. It’s Doctor Double D.”  Ba boom boom ching!

From there we visited Dolly’s old school, another one of her homes where her sister Willadeene still lives, the graveyard where her parents and brother are buried and the church where her grandfather was a preacher.

Just as a side, Ruth was once featured on the travel channel’s Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. She cooked him bear, racoon and possum! Eeek!

We came across this on our hike to Dolly’s… an Ode to Dolly perhaps?? 🙂