A Tradition Two Sisters Never Missed

For years, Dolly Parton and her sister Stella kept a simple ritual alive: a weekly Tuesday morning phone call over coffee. Following Dolly’s death on August 25 at age 80 after a brief battle with cancer, Stella shared a tribute reflecting on that tradition, along with the generosity that defined her sister right up until the end.

“Shoot Tedda”

Stella, one of Dolly’s 11 siblings, recalled one of her sister’s favorite sayings from their weekly calls. “Shoot Tedda, we get more work done before the sun comes up than most folks do all day long!” Dolly would tell her, before the two settled in to catch up on gossip, drink coffee and make plans, just as they always had.

Now, Stella says, those Tuesday mornings will never be the same. “My Tuesday morning coffee time will never be the same,” she wrote, “but her love, respect and goodness will remain.”

A Sister’s Tribute

Stella shared the news of Dolly’s passing in a Facebook post two days after her death, writing that her sister had “gotten her wings” and describing her as someone who was likely “showing out big time, in all her sparkles and shine” in heaven.

A Final Act of Selflessness

Alongside the tribute to their shared traditions, Stella also revealed a striking detail about Dolly’s final months. Even facing a battle she knew she might not win, Dolly agreed to let her medical team test an experimental treatment on her, not for her own benefit, but in hopes it could help future cancer patients. “My sister was always thinking of others,” Stella wrote.

A Worldview Rooted in Optimism

Stella also reflected on how differently the two sisters often viewed the world. While Stella admitted she would sometimes grow frustrated and critical, Dolly would simply laugh it off. “Shoot Tedda, we’ve got more important things to do than worry about their silly asses,” she would say, a line Stella says proved true time and again.

Stella closed her tribute by encouraging fans to honor Dolly’s memory not just with words, but with action, showing more kindness and giving more of their time to others, the same way Dolly did throughout her life.

A Legacy That Reached Millions

Parton was surrounded by family when she passed at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. Her family’s official statement highlighted her decades of generosity, from the hundreds of millions of books donated through her Imagination Library to her financial support of research behind a lifesaving vaccine used around the world.

Dolly Parton will be laid to rest in Nashville in a private family ceremony, as she requested.

Source: Compiled from various sources