Dolly Parton buried in an intimate family ceremony, niece confirms

Dolly Parton was buried on Friday in a private ceremony attended by family, according to a loving message from her niece Lainey Mae Parton.

Lainey Mae, 20, said she had waited until after the funeral to put her feelings into words. She described the message as difficult to write and said she could not yet fully grasp that her aunt had died at 80.

“I will miss her voice, her laugh, her hugs and simply the feeling that she was there,” Lainey Mae wrote. She added that, unlike most relatives, Dolly Parton left her with no bad memory at all: “Most people have at least one bad memory of every family member. But of her, I honestly cannot recall a single one.”

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I will miss her voice, her laugh, her hugs and simply the feeling that she was there.

The private service followed Parton’s stated wish for a small family funeral, a preference she had expressed years earlier. Details were not released. In a 2014 interview, she said she wanted the old country song “If We Never Meet Again” sung at her funeral. It was also known that she would be laid to rest beside her husband, Carl Dean, in Nashville. Dean died last year at 82.

Parton died on Tuesday at Nashville’s Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center after a short battle with cancer.

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Most people have at least one bad memory of every family member. But of her, I honestly cannot recall a single one.