Bouquets of flowers began piling up beneath the beloved Dolly Parton mural in Edgewater within hours of news breaking that the country music icon had died at 80.
The mural has watched over the 5500 block of North Broadway for years. Michelle Lytle painted Parton’s unmistakable bouffant hair and smiling face in black and white across the fence outside the Lytle House, the event venue she owns with her wife, Robyn.
Lytle had been a Parton fan for nearly as long as she could remember. But it wasn’t just the music that made her want to put Parton’s face on the wall. As Lytle grew older and came into her own as a lesbian, she also came to admire Parton for publicly embracing LGBTQ+ people at a time when support was far less common, particularly in country music.
So when Lytle learned Aug. 25 that Parton had died, she headed back to the mural.
“I feel like she was one of those people you thought was going to be around forever,” Lytle told Windy City Times while on her way. “I’m heading there today to be with our neighbors and anyone who shows up to give Dolly the honor that’s due.”
Lytle and the Dolly admirers leaving flowers at the mural weren’t alone. Across Chicago, LGBTQ+ people who grew up listening to Parton, performed her music or saw themselves in her were mourning.
Parton died after a decades-long career spanning country music, film, television and philanthropy. Born in the mountains of East Tennessee, Parton became one of the most celebrated singer-songwriters of her generation while building a larger-than-life persona that made her a cultural icon even outside of country music.
Parton’s nephew, Bryan Seaver, announced her death in a video posted to her social media accounts, something she had asked him to do when the time came. Her team later said Parton died after a brief battle with cancer.
“Dolly called me and said she wants to rest in a beautiful bed of plush cotton, because after a life wearing heavy rhinestones, she finally deserves to be comfortable and have some rest,” Seaver said.
Those rhinestones—and the towering blonde wigs, acrylic nails and exaggerated femininity they helped create—were part of what endeared Parton to generations of LGBTQ+ fans.
For decades, Parton publicly embraced LGBTQ+ people and spoke in support of their rights, even as she remained rooted in the country music industry and Christian faith of her East Tennessee upbringing.
“She loved people for who they were, and she wasn’t afraid to stand by them and tell people that,” Lytle said.
Lytle, the youngest of six kids, was introduced to Parton’s music by her older sister. Their dad would take them to buy new Parton CDs, which they’d have on constant rotation in their shared bedroom.
As she grew older, Lytle came to admire Parton as a strong woman in control of her career.
“I come from a family where we were really encouraged to be strong women, so hearing her personal stories about that cemented in me this ‘I can do anything’ attitude,” Lytle said.
Lytle had been itching to paint a mural of Parton since she and her wife founded the Lytle House, but her partner didn’t fully see the vision so Lytle held off—until one day the fence outside their business was graffitied.
“So then I asked again to paint Dolly, because if we have a blank spot, someone else is going to graffiti it,” Lytle said. “So I won that battle, I painted her, and then I ended up being proven right.”
The mural has become a landmark that’s attracted LGBTQ+ couples to the Lytle House for their weddings, Lytle said. Couples regularly include a photo with Dolly on their wedding shot lists, and some have told Lytle they first came to tour the venue because they knew it as the home of the mural.
Parton’s connection with LGBTQ+ fans was a constant throughline in her career. In 2005, Parton lent her song “Sugar Hill” to the two-disc Love Rocks compilation benefiting the Human Rights Campaign. That same year, she wrote and performed “Travelin’ Thru” for Transamerica, an indie film centered on a transgender woman.
Parton publicly supported same-sex marriage several years before the 2015 Supreme Court ruling that legalized it nationwide, spoke against an anti-trans bathroom law in North Carolina while touring the state in 2016, and voiced support for trans people in 2023 as her home state of Tennessee enacted a wave of anti-trans legislation.
Parton often framed that acceptance through her Christian faith, saying she believed people should love others as they are rather than judge them.
In a 2016 interview with The Guardian, Parton said she related to her LGBTQ+ fans because she, too, had “fought for the right to be myself.”
That unapologetic self-expression is part of what resonated with Ricky Martel, a member of the Second City Outlaws, an LGBTQ+ country dancing group in Chicago.
“She’s exactly who we as the LGBTQ+ community look up to because she is all the things that we know that we want to be,” Martel said. “She’s living it and giving us permission to live it.”
Martel grew up loving country music, and Parton stood out as someone who made room within that world for people like him. As a boy, he was drawn to Parton’s flamboyance and resonated with her message of kindness and acceptance.
Parton’s influence has been a constant in the Second City Outlaws’ performances, Martel said. The group has performed several Dolly-inspired songs, including Madeline Edwards’ “Mama, Dolly, Jesus” and Chapel Hart’s “You Can Have Him Jolene.”
Martel said the Second City Outlaws’ mission of creating a welcoming space for LGBTQ+ country dancers is an extension of the values Parton modeled.
“Everything about the Second City Outlaws is inspired by us trying to be the kind of group that she would be proud to say that we love her,” Martel said. “She wants us to carry on her legacy of love and welcoming inclusivity.”
Parton’s impact on Chicago’s LGBTQ+ community extended beyond the country dance scene. In December 2025, the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus paid tribute to Parton with its holiday concert, Holly Dolly Christmas, featuring nearly 250 singers and several Dolly impersonators.
“Dolly Parton is so much more than a country legend,” Artistic Director James Morehead said ahead of the show. “She’s a storyteller, a humanitarian, and an icon for the LGBTQIA+ community. Her message of love and resilience resonates deeply with who we are as a chorus.”
For Leif Forre, a gay business owner who founded Wall to Wall Framing in Edgewater, Parton had been a constant for nearly his entire life.
Forre was at his shop Aug. 25 talking with Windy City Times about Parton when a customer walked through the door carrying a Dolly Parton poster to be framed.
“I just had somebody come in with a poster of Dolly, and now I’m crying again,” Forre said.
The first record Forre ever bought for himself was Parton’s 1977 single “Here You Come Again.” He said he saved up his allowance from doing chores to buy it.
“As soon as it played on the radio, it made me happy,” Forre said, adding that hearing the song even decades later takes him back to being a carefree kid.
Forre said he knew from a young age that he was gay, and even then, he sensed something different about Parton’s relationship with people like him.
“I always knew that I was gay, and I just felt something about Dolly that she loved us,” Forre said. “She loved all of us.”
Forre now owns about 80 Parton albums, along with every book she wrote. On the day Parton died, he was listening to Trio, her 1987 album with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris.
“I’m gonna listen to them for the rest of my life,” Forre said. “Until the day I die, she’s gonna be a part of my life.”