The sixteen interviews contained in this volumce tell the stories of remarkable men and women who have made careers out of researching, writing, and teaching about the past. Friends and colleagues conducted these conversations over a decade or so, between November 2001 and September 2012. All were subsequently published in the Mormon Historical Studies journal or Religious Educator periodical, with the hope of someday bringing them together as a single book of personal essays. As we review and reflect on the personal lives and remarkable careers featured in this volume, we sense that many of these historians feel that they were perhaps prepared, or at least given a definite sense of mission and professional calling that stretches well back in time. Both editors have been beneficiaries of many mentors in the field and the recipients of a remarkable heritage of Mormon historians who have taken them under their wings and helped them become contributors to the telling of LDS history.