Sarah Jane Black was well acquainted with the hardships of taming the Utah frontier in 1875. But after starving because of poor crops in Rockville, Utah, and having to beg for food from the indians, she and her husband, Joseph Smith Black, received permission from Brigham Young to move to the Pahvant Valley in Millard County to farm wheat.

Joseph knew Alexander Barron's prophecy which described the Pahvant Valley as the "granary of the state," where streams of living water would come out of the ground.But as Sarah sat atop the horse and wagon with her husband and surveyed her new homeland of abandoned huts and parched desert, she asked Joseph, "Is this your lovely desert?"

"Not desert, Deseret," he said. "We must make it lovely."

He praised the area. She scorned it. "I hate this desert," she later said.

For the most part, the settlers of Pahvant Valley lived unheralded lives. They struggled to drain the alkaline from the soil while keeping the Sevier River from breaking their dams.

Yet their accomplishments have not gone unnoticed by their descendants and others who produced a two-act play titled, "In Our Lovely Deseret." The play was presented July 18-20 in Delta, Utah, as part of the Utah centennial celebration.

Prior to the opening on the first evening, President James E. Faust, second counselor in the First Presidency, dedicated the Palladium in Delta, Utah, where the play was presented.

President Faust, who was reared in Delta, recounted his family's history in the area before dedicating the building.

"In Our Lovely Deseret" uses humor, romance and drama to depict the struggles and triumphs of the Pahvant Valley through the eyes of Joseph S. Black, who became the first bishop in the town of Deseret, Utah.

The play details how Joseph and Sarah rose from severe poverty in their early years to find the crops flourishing and the dam holding water in the latter years.

The script was written during a period of two years by Lorene Black Smith and Cheryl Black Roper, two great-granddaughters of Joseph S. Black. They drew stories from his journal.

"The hardest part of writing this play was cutting out wonderful stories," Lorene B. Smith said.

In addition, 16 original songs were composed by Karrol Lyman Corey. One of the most dramatic moments of the play came after Sarah had lost her fourth child following a fire accident. She cried to Joseph, "Four babies, Joseph, how many babies is the Lord going to take away from me?"

Then, in a soliloquy, she sang, "In this heat, I'm shivering with cold. This is no different than Haun's Mill. This desert can kill."

The play "went over better than we anticipated," said Karolyn Warnick, county centennial committee member. "We would have been happy with 500 people attending each night." Instead, the play averaged 900 nightly.