BYL, Rev. Jean-Theodore de (1875-1926), a member of the Oblate Order and a trained architect who designed Roman Catholic mission churches and schools for the Oblate sect in Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Born in Holland in 1875, he was trained as an architect in Germany and Holland and arrived in Canada in 1894, joining the Oblate Order at St. Boniface, Manitoba. His best-known work in the Canadian prairie region was a substantial Romanesque Revival church at Lebret, Sask. (1925), overlooking Mission Lake in the Qu’Appelle Valley. The church was constructed of local fieldstone, with cut stone trim and an elaborate metal bell tower and steeple. Byl died in St. Boniface on 15 August 1926 at the age of 51 years (obituary article in the Winnipeg Daily Tribune, 16 Aug. 1926, 8, but his name is misspelled as "Theodore de Bye" [sic])
(list of works by Byl in Legacy of Stone: Saskatchewan’s Stone Buildings, 2008, p. 181)
MARIEVAL, SASK., Indian Residential School, 1897
MARCELIN, SASK., St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church, 1922
HOLDFAST, SASK., Church of the Assumption Roman Catholic Church, 1922
LEBRET, SASK., Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church, 1925 (M Hryniuk & F. Korvemaker, Legacy of Stone: Saskatchewan’s Stone Buildings, 2008, 179-83, illus. & descrip.)
MISSION LAKE, SASK., Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Scholasticate, 1926-27