Winnipeg’s Kris Kringle

Winnipeg

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/12/2024 (309 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If you frequented downtown Winnipeg from the 1930s to 1950s, you certainly would have been familiar with Christopher (Kris Kringle) Kendall. His jovial mood and resemblance to Santa Claus made him a favourite fixture of the downtown crowd for nearly 25 years.

Kendall was born in Searby, Lincolnshire, England on June 4, 1878. He came to Canada in his mid-20s and worked on farms in Saskatchewan and Manitoba before finally settling in Winnipeg.

Around 1935, Kendall took a job as a street newspaper seller. At one time, street sellers with their carts or small wooden booths were a fixture at major intersections in and around the downtown. They were independent workers, like home delivery paperboys.

In a 1948 Winnipeg Tribune story about Kendall, he explained that woke at 5 a.m. six days a week to pick up the papers, both the Tribune and the Winnipeg Free Press, with his cart and began his day selling at Market Avenue and Main Street until 10:30 a.m. From there, he was off to William Avenue and Main Street until noon, and he finished the afternoon at a newsstand at Portage Avenue and Sherbrook Street.

As Kendall got older, his route shrank and in later years he stationed himself outside the Child’s Building at Portage and Main on weekdays.

Kendall never married, had no family in Canada and claimed he had no personal friends, just the regular customers that he saw throughout his day. When his work was done, he returned to his small West End apartment where he had four wind-up clocks, a radio, and his bibles for company.

“I am never lonely. I have no troubles at all. I can go out and sell my papers and come back to my room at night with nothing to worry me,” he said. “I’m as happy as a king right here.”

What made Kendall notable among the city’s many street newspaper sellers, aside from his friendly manner, was his resemblance to Santa Claus. Kendall delighted in the shocked looks and smiles he brought to children’s faces year-round.

Kendall retired in 1957, at the age of 78, to the disappointment of many. The Free Press’ street sales manager said, “He was a fine salesman with a pleasing disposition. Prior to his retirement, he was steady as a clock. I think all the city knew him.”

Christopher Taylor Kendall died in his Sargent Avenue apartment on May 3, 1960, at the age of 81, and was buried in Elmwood Cemetery. A Free Press headline proclaimed, “Portage and Main’s Santa Claus Dies”.

In 1974, Winnipeg’s centennial year, the Free Press included Kendall in its Winnipeg 100, a list of notable people and places in the city’s history. Along with a brief biography it ran a photo of a portrait of Kendall that hung in the fourth-floor lobby of the old Free Press building on Carlton Street.

May the joy and happiness that Christopher (Kris Kringle) Kendall brought to Winnipeggers be with you this holiday season!