She grew up one of twelve children in a one-room cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains — dirt poor, but never without a song. When winter came and she had no coat, her mother sewed one from a box of rags and told her a story to make her proud of it: the Bible story of Joseph, and his coat of many colors.

She wore it to school like a queen. The other children didn't see a queen. They saw rags — and what they did next left a wound she carried for years, until she turned it into one of the most beloved songs ever written.

It's a story about poverty and pride, about a mother's love stitched into something out of nothing, and about how the cruelest day of a child's life can become the thing that outlives everyone who was in that room.

The name is revealed only at the final page. See if you can guess before the end.

New stories every week. And now... you know the rest.

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About this episode: The Final Page tells the true story of Dolly Parton — her childhood in the Great Smoky Mountains, the coat of many colors her mother sewed from scraps, the schoolchildren who mocked it, and the song that turned the memory into an anthem. A true-story history podcast about untold stories, unsung heroes, and famous people's hidden origins, in the storytelling tradition of Paul Harvey's "The Rest of the Story."

Watch the illustrated version on YouTube: The Final Page Show (@thefinalpageshow)