Dolly Parton and her husband, Carl Dean, were married for nearly 60 years, but they never had children.
Dolly often spoke openly about the decision, explaining that not having children gave her the freedom to focus on her career and charitable work.
In a 2014 interview, she revealed that she and Carl had once dreamed of having a daughter and had even chosen a name for her.
They would have called her Carla.
Dolly said they imagined what their child might look like, but eventually accepted that it “wasn’t meant to be.”
Although she never became a mother herself, Dolly dedicated herself to helping children through her Imagination Library, which she founded in 1995 to provide free books to young children.
The program has distributed more than 300 million books worldwide.
The daughter she once dreamed of never came, but Dolly created a legacy that touched millions of children.