KITCHENER - The home Joseph Schneider built more than two centuries ago still stands as a testament to this region's earliest pioneers. But what about his wife, Barbara?

For some, her omission from the historical site's name was a glaring oversight into the role of women in settler homes. It's one of the reasons the Region of Waterloo is dropping the name "Joseph" from the Joseph Schneider Haus historic site in a rebrand to be launched next month.

"Joseph is the person who built the house, but we interpret the house in terms of what the whole family did," said Ken Seiling, the regional chair. "In fact, what you see when you go to the house is mostly the work being done by the female contingent."

Starting next month, the Joseph Schneider Haus will be rebranded as the Schneider Haus: National Historic Site, with a stylized heart and tulips to replace the hand-drawn image taken from the Schneider Haus family bible.

But not everyone is happy about what might seem like a minor change. Some in the historical community are upset about the decision to remove reference to one of the region's most prominent Pennsylvania-German Mennonite settlers.

"We were not thrilled," said Kathy Bissett, a board member of the Friends of the Joseph Schneider Haus. "To change our name, for me, is not acceptable but I don't have the power to stop it."

Other local historians are grumbling privately about the change, calling it political correctness gone too far.

The move comes as part of a boarder rebranding effort to streamline the logos for all three regional museum sites. The McDougall Cottage in Cambridge is also getting a new look, while the National Historic Site designation is being added to the Schneider Haus name for the first time.

Bissett says she understand the need to update logos and fonts, but wishes they had left the site's name intact.

"I'm not happy about it. It's the Joseph Schneider Haus, it's not just the Schneider Haus," she said.

The region says some people had complained that Schneider's wife wasn't mentioned in the site's official name.

"Not including the name of Joseph's wife Barbara seemed to overlook her contributions. Removing his first name rather than adding her name seemed an appropriate way to address this," Sean Jasmins, the region's supervisor of marketing and partnerships, said in an email.

Dropping Joseph is also intended to clear up possible confusion with the founder of the iconic Schneiders brand of meat products, he said. Some people assumed J.M Schneider, who started his meat empire in 1886, was the same person as the settler who came here 70 years earlier, Jasmins said.

Seiling, meanwhile, says most people already called it "Schneider Haus" anyway.

"I always just call it Schneider Haus. I don't think the addition of the Joseph is a critical piece of the brand," he said. "Whenever I talk to people, they always say 'Schneider Haus.' "

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While some of the directors on the Friends of Joseph Schneider Haus are ambivalent to the change, others are more concerned. When the rebranding was first introduced last month, it was not warmly received.

"For some change can be a challenge, that being said, the goal of enhancing the logo was to make it more accessible to all in our community," Jasmins said, adding that the old logo was also hard to read.