Little girls wearing butterfly capes sang hymns and danced in the center aisle of a hillside chapel inside Dollywood during the first Sunday service after the death of the park’s namesake.
It was a congregation of comfortable shoes and T-shirts featuring the face of country queen and Tennessee icon Dolly Parton. Worshipers on Aug. 30 brought with them water bottles with reusable straws, bags of cinnamon bread and hats to keep the bright sun off their skin while they trekked through the theme park.
The low light of Robert F. Thomas Chapel was a break from the sun’s rays. But the chapel, which seats between 150 and 175, was packed, and people who didn’t get a spot inside sat in rows of black foldable chairs lined up just past the exit steps.
Dorcas
and Michael Collins are season passholders from Virginia who told Knox News from the church steps they attend service at the chapel every Sunday they spend in the park. Dorcas Collins said they’d started going years ago, when their children were small. “It was a little like this during an anniversary year,” she said of the crowd at the church, but she hadn’t seen it that busy at other times.
The Collinses’ regular attendance seemed to make them outliers among a group of visitors drawn for the chance to honor Parton, specifically.
“We had to be here,” Miranda Snyder told Knox News a few minutes before the service started.
Snyder and a friend had traveled from Pennsylvania to work at a nearby horror convention. After Parton’s death, they decided to go Dollywood, where they found the chapel service.
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Chaplain Joey Buck told the people in the pews they wouldn't hear any eulogy that day, and they weren't at a memorial service. Instead, Buck quoted from Psalms and talked about King David, preaching about life after loss and how hope and faith change you.
But from the themes he picked, he knew what kind of crowd he’d draw Sunday.
People have found God in Dolly’s theme park since before it was hers
The church is a Dollywood fixture; it’s been around for decades, before Dollywood was Dollywood. It’s one of the longest standing experiences the park offers, and it’s named after the physician and Methodist minister who delivered Parton.
But the congregation is always changing. Most weeks, Buck said in an interview, about 60% of the people in the pews are park visitors who have never been to one of his services before. About 40% are Dollywood employees or return visitors.
Preparing a sermon week-to-week can be a little tricky with a congregation that’s shifting so often. You’ve got to build a quick rapport as people flit from ride to sermon to restaurant to gift shop.
Sometimes people stop in for the novelty of being in a theme park church. Some, like the Collinses when they’re at Dollywood, settle in for a weekly religious observance.
“Either way, they’re here,” Buck said.
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There are opportunities to minister and spiritual needs to address, even in the midst of crowds feasting on turkey legs or flying into the air on rides.
Drafting a sermon for the worshipers visiting Dollywood the Sunday after Parton’s Aug. 25 death was tough, too.
Parton left an impression him, Buck said.
“There’s no one else I've met that could live such a life as she lived and still have a passion for connecting with everybody she met,” he said.
‘I wanted to honor her’
The earliest parts of Parton’s story - her childhood poverty, mountain roots and large family - are well known in East Tennessee. And those parts of her story are shared by many Appalachian women of her generation.
Maria Fioravanti and Chase Raby stood behind the chairs outside the chapel during the service. They’d come from Maryville specifically for the chapel service, they told Knox News. Their season passes are expiring, so they decided to drive over Sunday, to hear the service.
“We felt like it would be special,” Fioravanti said. And in remembering Parton at the service, they said they were also reminded of their grandmothers.
Both of their grandmothers came from East Tennessee, Fioravanti’s near Johnson City and Raby’s from Monroe County. Like Parton, both women were born into poor homes, without electricity or indoor plumbing.
“It was very similar to Dolly,” Raby said. He was very close to his grandmother, he said. She’d died recently, also at 80.
Jessica Rasmussen said she also saw parallels between her grandmother’s life and Parton’s. Rasmussen, a Murfreesboro resident, was at the chapel with her family Sunday. It was her first time at the park, she said, but hearing about the famous entertainer’s childhood put her in mind of her grandmother, who grew up poor amid the Tennessee mountains. She said that she was surprised the park had a chapel with a Sunday service, but she knew she’d be in the pews once she found out.
”I wanted to attend the service, and we want to honor her before we have fun and ride our rides,” she said of Parton.
Mariah Franklin reports on technology and energy for Knox News. Email: mariah.franklin@knoxnews.com. Signal: mariahfranklin.01
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Worshippers at Dollywood chapel find special chance to remember Dolly Parton
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