"Still Look to the Future in Faith"
RELIGIONAND LIFE T h e predominantly Mormon farmers of Rich County sought an idyllic life and at times approached it. Generally hard-working and passionately religious, the settlers came to epitomize the motto of "industry" later inscribed on the Great Seal of the State of Utah. There was a good deal of cooperation and community identification in early Rich County. Long hours were spent creating a society which the settlers hoped would fill both their spiritual and temporal needs. Under the rigors of frontier society, the spirit often had to carry the settlers through times when temporal pursuits failed them as well as through times of sorrow. Early Round Valley settler Merlin Eastham Kearl lost two of her children to diphtheria in one night. Of her husband James it was said: "He could ride hard, work hard, bury his dead, and still look to the future in faith."' Faith and conviction of purpose played an integral part in the development of Rich County. Devastated by the death of his young wife Marianne in 1865, Thomas Sleight later paid tribute to the difficulties experienced by her and other early women settlers in Bear Lake Valley.' Sleight remarked:
