Ozols, Baiba Kaugara, of East Bridgewater, died suddenly at home, July 7, 2014. Born in Latvia on October 1, 1943, she lived with her family in DP camps in Germany until they immigrated to the US in 1950; she grew up in Indiana and Michigan. She received her B.A. in English, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, in 1965, from Kalamazoo College; graduate study at the University of Münster, Germany, and Harvard University; an M.S. in Library Science at Simmons College in 1973.She worked as a cataloguing librarian at the Harvard Law Library for 22 years, cataloguing materials in more than 10 languages and preparing a bibliography of Archibald Cox.
As an active member of the Boston area Latvian community, she taught at the Saturday school and at the summer camps. A widely respected translator of Latvian poems and folk songs, she was also an award-winning poet, with her first book, Aizcirstas durvis. Baiba was a thorough and exacting editor, whether working on the Latvian children's magazine, Mazputninš, compiling a collected edition of her father's poems, or carefully proofreading friends' newspaper and magazine articles.
She cherished her family, especially her grandson, to whom she spoke only Latvian; she loved her cats and all the animals in her garden; she was a generous and devoted friend. Baiba was also an indefatigable home cook and baker; a passionate coffee drinker; an ice cream connoisseur; a masterful gardener; a clever and witty wordsmith; an avid crossword puzzler and Sudoku-solver; an expert at Scrabble, Boggle and Words with Friends; a faithful watcher of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy; a dedicated Red Sox fan; a meticulous cataloguer of instruction booklets and sheet music; a recycler extraordinaire; a yard sale enthusiast; and a lifelong promoter of Latvian traditions and customs, including lead-pouring, hand-weaving and fashioning Midsummer's wreaths.
She is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, Varis and Christie Ozols, and her grandson Issak, of East Bridgewater; her brother and sister-in-law, Girts and Liena Kaugars, of Kalamazoo, Michigan; her brother, Agnis Kaugars, of Alameda, California; three nieces and three nephews and their families; and a wide circle of friends in Massachusetts and Rhode island.
A memorial service will be held Saturday August 16, 2014 at 4:00 PM in the Latvian Lutheran Church of Boston, 58 Irving Street, Brookline, MA.