This husband and wife duo[2] worked to protect and preserve the cultural expressions of the American West and Mormon folklore.
Called “The founders of Mormon folklore studies” by Eric A. Eliason,[3] Austin and Alta Fife were dedicated to the future of folkloristics in Utah (153).
[and] as a married couple, they began folklore research together in the late 1930s when they were living in California, where Austin was a graduate student at Stanford University, serving as research assistant to the distinguished professor of Hispanic-American folklore, Aurelio Espinosa, Sr.” (2004, 230).
[6] In an essay dedicated to this topic, Barbara Lloyd, director of one of the many Fife Folklore Conferences, describes it this way: In his essay, “Building Bridges: Folklore in the Academy,” William A. Wilson explains that a friend of his at USU encouraged him “to join the faculty there and to continue the work begun earlier by prominent folklorist Austin Fife” (29).
[4] “Saints of Sage and Saddle by the Fifes remains the most complete book-length treatment of Mormon folklore” (Terry Rudy 2004, 144).