After a brilliant baccalauréat at Bischwiller in 1939, as the University of Strasbourg had been closed, she studied French, German and folklore at the University of Heidelberg, earning a doctorate in 1944 with a dissertation titled Coutumes et croyances lorraines concernant le feu et l’eau (Lorraine Customs and Beliefs Relating to Fire and Water).
Based at the University of Strasbourg, by means of a questionnaire she collected details of ethnographical publications in Alsace, which allowed her to contribute to the Atlas folklorique de France.
[4] In 1948, following her marriage, Tenèze settled in Paris where she began to work at the recently established Laboratoire d'Ethnographie française.
In parallel, she contributed the French component of the Bibliographie internationale des arts et traditions populaires coordinated by Robert Wildhaber [de] with the support of UNESCO.
Working in particular with Josiane Bru, she devoted the remainder of her life to investigating the history of oral tales and traditions.