Country singer-songwriter Dolly Parton left fans a personal invitation to her Life of Many Colors Museum in Nashville, and a prerecorded message lets them hear it in her own voice.
“I put all these things in the works and I love to see my dreams come true,” Parton said in an interview shared by Entertainment Tonight.
Parton talked about wanting to keep busy, seeing projects through and what she hoped people would learn from her story.
The invitation has a different weight now, but it keeps the focus on something she wanted to share. Parton introduces herself and welcomes fans to a museum built around her life, rather than leaving someone else to do all the talking.
“It’s everything she dreamed of and more so,” Parton said when an interviewer asked what her younger self would think of the star she became.
Her team’s museum and hotel announcement explains how visitors can follow that journey. The museum occupies the third floor of Dolly Parton’s SongTeller Hotel and brings together personal stories, rarely seen pieces of her collection and interactive experiences.
Related: Dolly Parton, Faith-Filled Country Icon and Movieguide® Award Winner, Dies at 80
The story begins with a recreation of the small cabin where Parton grew up in the Great Smoky Mountains. The experience then follows the people, places and moments that shaped her career, with footage recorded earlier this year letting Parton guide guests through her own history.
That childhood starting point gives families somewhere concrete to begin. Before the songs and the stage clothes, there was a little girl with a home, a family and ambitions she had yet to carry into the world.
The surrounding hotel keeps songwriting close at hand. The 245-room property includes Jolene’s, a top-floor venue for singers and songwriters, and Parton’s Live, a second-floor space for writers’ rounds, songwriter sessions and emerging performers.
Parton died on Aug. 25 at age 80.
Her longtime manager, Danny Nozell, said her team has a roadmap for projects she developed over several years. In an Aug. 26 update, the team said it would continue bringing those plans to life and that official releases carried Parton’s personal approval.
“She loved seeing her dreams come to life, and loved knowing her work brought people joy,” Nozell said in the update.
The team included the hotel and museum among those active projects. Its list also included books, music and other experiences, explaining why fans would continue encountering new work that Parton helped develop rather than only looking back at her earlier career.
The family also directed supporters toward Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library instead of flowers. Alongside the museum’s look back at her career, that request gives admirers another way to respond to the loss.
Asked in the Entertainment Tonight report what she hoped people would take away from her story, Parton pointed to hard work and the sacrifices that pursuing a dream can require.
“…that dreams can come true and dreams do come true,” she said.
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