Around 1981, this building in the Libau area in the Rural Municipality of St. Clements were featured in a Manitoba Co-operator series on rural architecture. The original caption for the photograph is given below.
Manitoba is filled with village and towns bearing names from distant lands. Often, the oldest surviving buildings in the area also reflect this transplanted heritage. Libau is one such area. Settled at the turn of the century by immigrants from Latvia, it was named in remembrance of the now Russian seaport through which they had left their homelands for Canada. Jacob and Dora Ozol were part of that original group and finally settled about one and one-half miles east of the town site. One of their earliest buildings was the horse stable at the left of this week’s illustration. Along with a number of smaller spruce log structures, it illustrates the log joinery of the time and some design traditions of homeland. Located to the right is a converted home-workshop, and out of the picture is a 1932 barn which features old country hinges on the doors. Jacob Ozol also built another traditional structure that is still in use today by son Hans and wife Lorna. The six-foot-square smokehouse continues to serve its original purpose of curing hams, sausage, bacon, fish, etc. with its fieldstone and lime walls still in good repair.
The pictured structure was, in fact, the original house built at the site in 1909 by carpenter Jacob Ozol (1869-1963). He came to Canada in 1894, purportedly the second Latvian to arrive in Manitoba. The building was later converted to a shop to store tractors. A second floor bedroom was left as it was when Hans Ozol (1917-2007) was a child, complete with bed, dresser, books, and more.
The building was standing as recently as 2000 but has since fallen and its wood was being used as fuel for an outdoor furnace at the site.
Ozol Barn (circa 1981)
Source: Bob HainstockSite Location (lat/long): N50.27106, W96.64959
denoted by symbol on the map above
Obituary [Hans Irvin Ozol], Winnipeg Free Press, 18 October 2007.
Obituaries and burial transcriptions, Manitoba Genealogical Society.
We thank Lorna Clark and Don Ozol for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Bob Hainstock, Ed Ledohowski, and Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 2 October 2024
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