Local toddlers in Sevier County began calling her the “Book Lady” and Robert Lee Parton wept. The tobacco farmer who had spent his whole life hiding his inability to read suddenly saw his greatest shame transformed into his greatest pride. His daughter Dolly Parton had just launched a program that would mail free books to every child in their community and he helped make it happen.
Robert Lee Parton passed away in November 2000 at age 79. He had never learned to read or write. Born in the remote hollows of Locust Ridge during the 1920s he left school early to work the fields. He married Avie Lee and raised twelve children in a one room cabin. The national media remembered him as the father of a country music superstar but at home he was the resilient day laborer who knew how to survive harsh Appalachian winters.
Dolly Parton never hid her father’s lack of formal education. She often told reporters that the man in dirt stained work clothes was the smartest person she ever knew.
He could not spell words on a map but he understood weather patterns crop seasons and the mechanics of keeping twelve children fed
That practical intelligence became the foundation of the Imagination Library which she started in 1995.
The program mailed one free age appropriate book every month to children from birth to age five regardless of family income. Robert Lee lived for five more years after the launch and he was a quiet but vital participant. He helped Dolly understand the pride and realities of local families making sure the initiative felt like a neighborly gift not clinical charity. He attended community events and wept when he heard the first children call his daughter the Book Lady.
After his death Dolly expanded the program aggressively in his memory. The Imagination Library grew beyond Tennessee partnering with governments across the United States Canada the United Kingdom Australia and Ireland. The organization has mailed over 200 million books funded by a woman who built her fortune on words but anchored by the memory of a man who could not read them.
Dolly also established funds for working class families local farmers and disaster relief ensuring that rural laborers received the same institutional respect as university graduates. Robert Lee Parton never read a single page but his legacy wrote the most important chapter of his daughter’s enduring story.