a reproduction

In summer, the women of the Jacob Realy Family did their baking in an outside brick oven just as their ancestors had done back in the "old country". After the old oven was no longer in use, time, weather, and falling limbs from the maple tree destroyed the log building and finally caved in the oven itself. Copied from a photograph of the original, this building stands directly to the south of the old one.

The logs, old utility poles, were contributed by Consumers Power Co. The building is shingled with split cedar shakes. The rafters are of tamarack, the traditional material for this type of construction. The only modern concession is that the house is built at ground level with a footing and the door is a normal height. In earlier years, you stepped through a five-foot door and down a foot to the dirt floor.

In Germany, this traditional oven played a very important role. Regardless of status, most people had such an oven in the "garden", although not necessarily a building over their oven. Some villages provided a communal oven.