Kjeisten SecretanFollow

Date Collected

Fall 12-3-2017

Place item was collected

Lehi, Utah in informants house

Informant

Kelli Secretan

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

Kelli is 28 years old. She is my sister-in-law. She has lived in Lehi, Utah all of her life. She is a member of the Mormon church an is a Medical Assistant for a clinic. She has a lot of family that are prominent in Lehi and the surrounding areas.

Context

I interviewed Kelli in her living room. It was a casual atmosphere, her husband, and my girlfriend were also present. Kelli would hear bit and pieces form my family and see stories from a historical society on Facebook. She has told these to try to explain why she named her son after him. She would generally tell people at church and will tell her sons, when passing this story along. She never knew if the stories were true, but she says they are confirmed to her because they were written by other people.

Text

So his name is Alexander Christofferson, he went by Alec, he was the first Lehi city Marshall the police chief, he came to Lehi when he was 12 years old. He was the first city marshal to have automobile, first to use fingerprints. He worked at Geneva steel and was known as the strongman. He operated a threshing machine for 20 years and one time the little bridge over the ditch broke, and he like I don’t exactly how he did it, if he was on his hands and knees or if he was on his back and had his hands and legs up holding the bridge but he held the bridge up while the thresher went across the bridge. And then he could shear 300 sheep a day. So he did something with sugar beets. He would dig up sugar beets and get paid by the pound. So most people would have a pitch fork with 3 prongs so you would get a couple sugar beets at a time but like he invented his own pitchfork that was double wide, so he could work twice as fast. He was also a famous like fighter or boxer and people would come from all over to see him fight. So he took on the greatest fighters in the world. He was offered like a million dollars to fight at Madison square garden but he turned it down. So I named my son after him cuz he’s strong.

Texture

Kelli told this story with causal energy, but you could sense a hint of pride when she was talking about this relative’s story. Her tone would heighten when she told some parts of the story. She definitely was resolute on believing these stories.

Course

Introduction to Folklore/English 2210

Instructor

Lynne S. Mcneill

Semester and year

Fall 2017

Theme

G7: Character Legends

EAD Number

4.C.7.1

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