LORETTA LYNN Farewell to a MUSIC LEGEND

THE COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER SANG UNVARNISHED SONGS ABOUT REAL LIFE

- Natalie Posner

In 1966, after she'd achieved her first burst of success, Loretta Lynn and her family found their forever home. For the singer-songwriter, who grew up as one of eight children of a Kentucky coal miner and spent the early years of her marriage on the road, Hurricane Mills, a 1,450-acre ranch an hour from Nashville, was a personal paradise. Loretta quietly passed away there at age 90 on Oct. 4.

Fans, friends and family remember a fearless trailblazer who conquered the male-dominated country music world with songs that reflected the lives of ordinary women. Yet for all her decades of success, Loretta never stopped being her humble, direct self. "She was a wonderfully good and pure soul," Georgette Jones, the daughter of George Jones and Tammy Wynette tells Closer.

"She was there for my mom in her hardest times, and she stood up for me, too, more than once."