He was wearing this rag-tag overcoat in the mission field and the missionaries felt sorry for him so some of the missionaries, maybe even the Mission President, initiated a collection to buy him an overcoat. He, of course, came from a rather well-to-do family. He heard about [the collection] and he went up to one of the missionaries and said, "You know, here's thirty dollars. Buy him a suit too."

Richard Holzapfel tells: We had a fairly active High Priest's Quorum. Dallin Oaks, president of the University, was in the ward. The bishop [told me] "We decided that we were going to raise some money to buy an older member of our ward a coat. He didn't have a nice warm coat. It was winter. So we got the High Priest's Quorum to collect money to actually buy this person a coat. And Nibley came into my office and said, "Hey, I'll give you $100 to help this guy." And I looked at him and said, "Hugh, the coat's for you."

It is said that early in their marriage Phyllis had to go without buying dresses so that Hugh could buy books. One time in particular Nibley wanted a book on a German Philosopher with special marginal notes. The book cost $150, and that was in the 1960s.