Dolly Parton’s cousin Richie Owens, 65, has opened up about Parton’s wishes for the end of her life.
Parton was buried in Woodlawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum in Nashville next to her husband, Carl Dean, on August 28. The event was small and private, which the country star had requested before her death on August 25 at age 80.
“She wanted to keep it very quiet,” Owens, who is also a country music performer, said on NBC’s Today. “The work keeps getting brought up: a ‘funeral.’ And I don’t believe that was really the case in the situation. It was a burial to be buried beside her husband, and she wanted it very small, and a few family members were there.”
“It was very quiet, very quickly done,” he continued. “And not for any bad reasons whatsoever; it’s just that’s what she wanted, you know? She wanted to keep it very, very private.”
Owens also said Parton wanted people to use their money to make the world a better place, rather than to attend a huge public memorial. Parton had told him as much before she died.
“She would much rather see people take that $50 and give it to her Imagination Library,” he said. “She said that many, many times. She really cared about her charities.”
Owens frequently collaborated with Parton throughout both of their careers, even producing several of Parton’s records, including her 1998 album Hungry Again.
The last time Owens and Parton were together, they were searching for the same model of guitar Parton had as a kid. Owens’ father, Louis, gifted Parton a “little Martin guitar” in 1958, but Parton lost it to a house fire decades later. Owens found the exact 518 model. When he brought it to the Martin Guitar Company for documentation, their love for Parton meant he left with not only the 518 model but also a brand-new guitar, complete with Parton’s signature butterfly on the twelfth fret.
“The lady was always just magic,” he said. “It just poured out of her.”
