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Around 1981, this housebarn in the Municipality of Rhineland was featured in a Manitoba Co-operator series on rural buildings. The original caption for the photograph is given below.
Abe Neufeld built this combination house and barn in 1875 about one-half mile southeast of Rosetown. More than 106 years later, his great grandson Abe E. Kehler and family are still living there. Built in the traditional Mennonite village style of a single structure for livestock, machinery and family, the barn portion measures 28 feet by 80 feet and the house portion 26 feet by 40 feet. This house takes on added significance when one considers that the first wave of Mennonite settlers did not step from the river in Fort Garry until 31 July 1874. According to reports, 325 men, women and children then settled on the East and West Reserves to take up farming and this particular house was built the following year. The combining of quarters for family and livestock was not exclusive to Mennonite settlers, but in fact had been well established in Quebec and other eastern regions for several centuries. In Manitoba, however, the combination house-barn is almost exclusively associated with the early Mennonite community.
No information is available on the present status of the building.
Neufeld Housebarn (circa 1981)
Source: Bob HainstockApproximate Site Coordinates (lat/long): N49.04146, W97.72913
denoted by symbol on the map above
See also:
Historic Sites of Manitoba: Manitoba Co-operator Rural Buildings Series
This page was prepared by Bob Hainstock, Ed Ledohowski, and Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 10 February 2021
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