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Did you know that Dolly Parton comes from a large family? She’s one of 12 children born to her parents, Avie Lee and Robert Lee Parton. Many of Dolly’s brothers and sisters pursued music careers, too! Learn more about all 11 of her siblings

Dolly Parton Has 11 Siblings: Learn About All Of Her Brothers & Sisters

Dolly Parton Has Lots Of Brothers & Sisters – Get To Know Her 11 Siblings

Country music superstar Dolly Parton is the fourth of twelve children born to Robert Lee and Avie Lee Parton. That’s right, she has 11 siblings!

Dolly herself was born on January 19, 1946 in a one-room cabin in Pittman Center, Tennessee, about 26 minutes from Pigeon Forge. Her father worked as a sharecropper, farmer, and construction worker, while her mother stayed home and cared for their children.

Dolly has described their family as being “dirt poor” during her childhood. She recalled how her father Robert paid the doctor who delivered her with a sack of cornmeal when she was born.

Like Dolly, many of her siblings ended up pursuing singing careers. Dolly says her mother’s side of the family fostered their love for music.

“I grew up in a very musical family, all my mother’s people were very musical, so I was always around people playing instruments and singing, and my mom singing the old songs,” she told PEOPLE in 2020.

In 2015, Dolly shared the story of her childhood in her TV movie Coat of Many Colors. She followed up with more heartwarming tales from her youth in the sequel Christmas of Many Colors: Circle of Love.

Dolly’s siblings had featured roles in both movies. Now, keep scrolling to learn more about her real-life siblings…all 11 of them!

Introducing Dolly Parton’s 11 Siblings

Willadeene Parton

Willadeene is the eldest of the 12 Parton siblings. She was born on March 24, 1940. Willadeene is nearly six years older than Dolly, and a full 19 years older than their youngest sibling, Rachel.

Because she was the oldest of the Parton kids, many of Willadeene’s brothers and sisters looked up to her as a second mother figure.

As she grew up, Willadeene made it clear she too, had a passion for music. She pursued a gospel career for several years before leaving the music industry.

Willadeene discovered a new passion, writing. She published a memoir, Smoky Mountain Memories: Stories from the Hearts of the Parton Family in 1996. She published her second book, a cookbook titled All-Day Singing & Dinner on the Ground in 1997.

Since then, Willadeene has lived a mostly private life out of the spotlight.

David Parton

David is the firstborn Parton son. He was born in 1942.

Unlike many of his other siblings, David did not pursue a music career. He worked as a bridge builder superintendent and lived a private life, though he was occasionally photographed with Dolly and their brothers and sisters.

David passed away on November 15, 2024, at the age of 82.

Coy Parton

The third Parton sibling, and second son, Coy, was born in 1943.

Like his older brother David, Coy chooses to live a private life.

Robert Lee Parton Jr.

Two years after Dolly was born, she got a little brother. Robert Lee Parton Jr. was born in 1948.

Because she was the oldest of the Parton kids, many of Willadeene’s brothers and sisters looked up to her as a second mother figure.

As she grew up, Willadeene made it clear she too, had a passion for music. She pursued a gospel career for several years before leaving the music industry.

Willadeene discovered a new passion, writing. She published a memoir, Smoky Mountain Memories: Stories from the Hearts of the Parton Family in 1996. She published her second book, a cookbook titled All-Day Singing & Dinner on the Ground in 1997.

Since then, Willadeene has lived a mostly private life out of the spotlight.

David Parton

David is the firstborn Parton son. He was born in 1942.

Unlike many of his other siblings, David did not pursue a music career. He worked as a bridge builder superintendent and lived a private life, though he was occasionally photographed with Dolly and their brothers and sisters.

David passed away on November 15, 2024, at the age of 82.

Coy Parton

The third Parton sibling, and second son, Coy, was born in 1943.

Like his older brother David, Coy chooses to live a private life.

Robert Lee Parton Jr.

Two years after Dolly was born, she got a little brother. Robert Lee Parton Jr. was born in 1948.

Robert Jr. is also the third Parton sibling who has always maintained a private life. Much like his older brothers Coy and David, Robert did not pursue a music career.

Stella Parton

Dolly Parton with her little sister, Stella Parton, in 2015. Stella is one of Dolly Parton's 11 siblings.

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Country Oldies Musics

BILLY JOE SHAVER’S LAST PERFORMANCE WAS IN A KITCHEN. HIS LAST SONG WAS “LIVE FOREVER.” TWO YEARS LATER, COUNTRY MUSIC FOUND OUT HE MEANT IT. Billy Joe Shaver didn’t leave the world from a stage. During COVID, his final performance happened in his own kitchen — just him, a guitar player, and the song that suddenly sounded less like music and more like prophecy. He chose “Live Forever.” Six months later, a stroke took him at 81. Most people never knew his name the way they knew the stars who sang his words. But outlaw country carried his fingerprints everywhere. He wrote most of the songs on Waylon Jennings’ Honky Tonk Heroes, the album that helped give the movement its spine. Life had already taken plenty from him. Two fingers in a sawmill accident. His wife. His son. A heart attack onstage that still didn’t finish him. Then, two years after he was gone, Willie Nelson, George Strait, Miranda Lambert, Steve Earle, and others recorded his songs on a tribute album called Live Forever. That kitchen performance wasn’t an ending. It was Billy Joe Shaver telling the truth one last time.

Country Oldies Musics

HE FORGOT THE WORDS TO HIS OWN SONG ON STAGE. THEN THE AUDIENCE GAVE THEM BACK TO HIM. In 2011, Glen Campbell walked onstage knowing something many fans still did not fully understand — Alzheimer’s was already taking pieces of him. His wife, Kim, helped make the diagnosis public because she did not want people to mistake his confusion for something else. Some said he should stop. Rest. Disappear quietly before the disease could embarrass him. Glen chose goodbye instead. He launched a long farewell tour with his children beside him in the band. Night after night, his memory faltered, but his fingers still found the guitar. It was as if the music lived somewhere deeper than the illness could reach. There were nights when the words slipped away. And then something beautiful happened. The audience sang. Not over him. Not around him. With him. They carried the lines he could no longer hold, and Glen smiled like he understood exactly what love sounded like when it came back from the seats. His final show came in Napa, California, on November 30, 2012. Five years later, he was gone at 81. Alzheimer’s took the words. It never took the song.

Country Oldies Musics

SHE FOUGHT THE SONGS THAT MADE HER IMMORTAL. When producer Owen Bradley brought Patsy Cline “I Fall to Pieces,” she was not convinced. Brenda Lee had already passed on it. Patsy worried it was wrong for her voice, argued over the arrangement, and recorded it anyway. It became her first No. 1 country hit. Then came “Crazy,” written by a struggling songwriter named Willie Nelson. Patsy did not walk into the room knowing it would become history. After a brutal car accident left her hurt and healing, she could not even give the song what it needed at first. So the band recorded the track without her. When she came back to the microphone, something changed. The pain, the hesitation, the control in her voice — all of it became part of the record. “Crazy” became one of the most famous country recordings ever made. But here is the quiet twist. Patsy Cline did not always recognize the songs that would carry her forever. “I Fall to Pieces” sounded wrong until it made her undeniable. “Crazy” sounded impossible until her voice made it eternal. She died in a plane crash on March 5, 1963. She was only 30. On her grave are the words: “Death Cannot Kill What Never Dies: Love.” Patsy Cline fought the songs that made her immortal. But somehow, those songs knew her before she knew them.

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SHE HAD BEEN SINGING MOUNTAIN MUSIC SINCE BEFORE BLUEGRASS EVEN HAD A NAME. THEN, AT 80, WILMA LEE COOPER COLLAPSED ON THE OPRY STAGE WITH THE SONG STILL IN HER THROAT. Wilma Lee Cooper came out of Valley Head, West Virginia, where music was not something you studied in a conservatory. It was family. Church. Radio. Coal-country evenings. Her father worked in the mines. Her mother played pump organ. Wilma started singing when she was five, then sang with her family gospel group before she ever became part of country music history. She met Stoney Cooper in the early 1940s. He played fiddle. She sang and played guitar. Together they built a sound that sat between mountain gospel, old-time string band music, and the country music that had not yet decided how polished it wanted to become. They did not wait for genre labels. They drove. They broadcast. They played wherever people would listen. The roads were part of the act. Their daughter Carol Lee sometimes slept in the car under the upright bass while Wilma and Stoney went from show to show. They raised a family while keeping a band alive. They recorded songs like “Big Midnight Special,” “There’s a Big Wheel,” and “Wreck on the Highway.” By 1957, they had joined the Grand Ole Opry. The Smithsonian later called Wilma Lee the “First Lady of Bluegrass.” But that title came after decades of work. It came after she and Stoney had already spent years carrying the mountain sound through a country business that was moving toward smoother voices and cleaner suits. Then Stoney died in 1977. Wilma Lee did not leave with him. She stayed with the Opry. She kept leading the Clinch Mountain Clan. The old mountain voice remained onstage, older now but still carrying the same hard edge. She had already sung for more than sixty years by the time she walked onto the Ryman Auditorium stage on February 24, 2001. She was eighty. During that performance, Wilma Lee suffered a stroke. The career ended there. Not in a retirement announcement. Not in a farewell special. Onstage, in the place where she had kept the old sound alive for generations. The illness affected her speech and voice, and doctors doubted she would walk again. But Wilma Lee did return once more. In 2010, at the reopening of the Opry House after the Nashville flood, she came back for a group sing-along. Not to reclaim the old career. Not to prove anything. Just to stand in the room one more time and thank the people who had carried her. For most of her life, Wilma Lee Cooper sang as if the mountain had come down from West Virginia and entered the microphone. Her last great silence came on the same stage where she had spent decades refusing to let that mountain disappear.