The Sweet Thing Dolly Parton and Carl Dean Do When They Miss Each Other
In their golden years, Dolly Parton and husband Carl Dean are spending more quality time together than ever. Parton has stopped touring to stick closer to home—and closer to her husband.
But back when the “Jolene” singer’s career was just getting started, it wasn’t unusual for Parton and Dean to spend most of their time apart. It’s one of the reasons the Queen of Country thinks her marriage has been so successful for all these years. With all that time away, Parton and Dean often missed each other. Here’s what they would do to quell the pangs of longing.
Dolly and Carl have always respected the other’s alone time
Dean has always been a loner, which works perfectly for someone who’s in the line of work Parton is in. Dean never made Parton feel bad for pursuing her dreams or being gone all the time. And Parton never made her husband feel bad for doing what he liked to do, even during the short stints that she was actually home.
“Carl’s favorite place when he was little was an alley that he called ‘the calley,’” Parton wrote in her 1994 memoir, Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “His mother would call for him, ‘Carl Thomas Dean, where are you?’ And he’d say, ‘Down’t the calley.’ I had a sign made by some of the craftsmen at Dollywood, my theme park, that says DOWN’T THE CALLEY and put it up over his barn/workshop. Nothing could be more appropriate. I always know if he’s not in the house, he’s ‘down’t the calley.’”
Dolly used to smell her husband’s clothes when she missed him
Parton’s always loved the smell of her husband’s clothes.
“When we were first married I would smell that odor of grease and smoke (yes, he does smoke cigarettes, trying to quit),” she wrote. “He leaves his work clothes hanging in the mudroom, and sometimes I’ll just smell them, especially if he’s not around, I’m going out of town, or I’m just missing him. Don’t that sound silly? He does the same thing, though.”
Dean has always loved the smell of his wife’s clothes, too.
“I wear a lot of perfume, and sometimes I’ll see him just walk into my closet and pull the frilly things up to his nose and get a good whiff. He always says that nobody smells like me.”
‘My prayer is that we will die at the same time’
The “Coat of Many Colors” singer used to wonder if something ever happened to either of them, if the other could stand to smell their clothes.
“My prayer is that we will die at the same time, so I won’t have to worry about such things,” wrote Parton. “We’d sure lose a lot if we lost each other. All of this might seem strange to people who know that Carl and I are not physically together much of the time. What must be understood is that we are always together emotionally and spiritually.”
