Date Collected
11-30-2018
Place item was collected
Layton, UT
Informant
Michelle Fitzgerald
Point of Discovery/Informant Bio
Michelle Fitzgerald is my mother. She was born and raised in Kaysville, Utah, as a member of the LDS church. She attended and graduated BYU, where she met my dad. She is a stay-at-home mom, and enjoys crafts of all kinds.
Context
This story is lean on details, because Frank was not interested in non-objective descriptive terms.
Text
"My father‘s family the Butler‘s were all great hunters. Probably out of necessity during the depression. My great grandfather broke his back in a mining accident and was never able to hold a full-time job after that. There is a family story documented by newspaper article of how he and my grandfather Frank shot a bear up Spanish Fork Canyon. Not only do I know this is a true story because of the article, but also because the decades later, while my husband and I were staying with my grandmother we found the carefully saved their skin. In a drawer with the bullet hole still visible but in less then prime condition- it smelled! After all it had been at least 50+ years."
Texture
This story is presented with an air of humor- the corroborating evidence is emphasized, and there is a definite sense that without it everyone would assume it was a tall tale.
Course
ENGL 2210
Instructor
Lynne McNeill
Semester and year
Fall 2018
Theme
G7: Marriage and Family
EAD Number
3.10.2.197
Recommended Citation
Fitzgerald, Brittany, "The Bear" (2018). USU Student Folklore Fieldwork. Paper 276.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/student_folklore_all/276