Lewis Benjamin "Louie" Kenyon^[1]

1889 - 1967  (77 years)

• Name	Lewis Benjamin "Louie" Kenyon
  Born	20 Sep 1889	Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [2, 3]
  Gender	Male
  Business	955 King St. W., Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
  	Louie's Lunch and Tobacco Shop
  Name	Louie Kenyon
  Residence	Wasaga Beach, Simcoe Co., Ontario
  Residence	1891	Waterloo Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [3]
  	United Brethren
  Residence	1940	275 Victoria St. N., Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
  Eby ID Number	00115-7287.3
  Died	25 Aug 1967	Collingwood, Nottawasaga Twp., Simcoe Co., Ontario
  Person ID	I374831	Generations
  Last Modified	6 Apr 2024

  
  

  Father	Henry Johnson Kenyon,   b. 24 Oct 1860, Blenheim Twp., Oxford Co., Ontario, Canada ,   d. 12 Aug 1944, Hespeler (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  (Age 83 years)
  Mother	Lydia Ann Souder,   b. 25 Apr 1865, Waterloo Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada ,   d. Yes, date unknown
  Married	2 Mar 1884	Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [4, 5]
  Family ID	F3176	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Alice Eugenia Snorine,   b. 23 Oct 1891, Renville, Renville, Minnesota, United States ,   d. 8 Feb 1969, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  (Age 77 years)
  Married	19 Jun 1914	San Rafael, Marin, California, United States
  Children	1. Grace Christina Kenyon,   b. 20 Jun 1919, , King, Washington, United States ,   d. 8 Aug 1989, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  (Age 70 years)
  Last Modified	7 Apr 2024
  Family ID	F40264	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Notes

  Flash from the Past: At Louie's you could eat, play pool, buy a magazine Today the site holds a parking lot used by employees of Sun Life Financial in Waterloo. But 60 years ago, the King Street block between Grand River Hospital (then Kitchener-Waterloo Hospital) and Sun Life (then Mutual Life Assurance) was chock full of houses and apartments. And if you walked along the south side of King, you couldn't help but notice the big Louie's sign in front of Louie's Lunch and Louie's Tobacco Shop. Last week's mystery photo showed the two businesses (they were linked by an interior door) that Louis B. Kenyon (or Louie) and his wife, Alice, ran from roughly 1943 to 1951 at 953 and 955 King St. W., Kitchener - very close to the boundary line between Kitchener and Waterloo. In some years, it appears, they turned the operation of the lunch bar over to others. Lillian Moore, who today lives in Linwood, was an employee in the Kenyon's lunch bar and lived nearby. Sometime about 1951 she snapped the photo, which was provided for use here by her son, David Moore of Waterloo. That's young David on the left, arm in arm with Roger Kenyon, a grandson of Louis and Alice. He now lives in Goderich. Mary Fowler of Kitchener also worked at Louie's in those years and remembers the Kenyons as good employers. "They treated me like a daughter," she says. Robert Euler of Waterloo phoned to say he recalls going to Louie's as a high school student. He had a passion for bodybuilding and power lifting and visited the shop to buy "muscle magazines." "He (Louie) had a big magazine rack in the store. I knew exactly what day the magazine would arrive and what time it would be in the store. There could be a blizzard outside, but I would be there to get it." Sandra Bunsch grew up on Mount Hope Street and regularly walked to Louie's to buy magazines for her grandfather, who always made sure she had change to buy herself a treat. "That's where I had my first Mello cone (ice cream)," Bunsch said. "Louie was the most amazing man. He was so personable." Robert Clair of Kitchener also recalls going to Louie's as a young teenager in the 1940s. "There was a pool table in the back. The first time I saw it, Mr. Kenyon stopped me and said, 'How old are you?' I said I was 14 and he said, 'You can't go back there.' "I went outside and then I went back into the store. And again he asked, 'How old are you?' This time I told him I was 18. " 'Well then,' he said. 'I will show you how to shoot pool.' " Clair says he later got a job as a cement finisher with a man name Vincent La Combe and helped to build a concrete building behind Louie's. It could be reached from a laneway than ran back from King beside the shop and lunch bar. Walter Pieper ran Curley's Autobody (later Curley's Towing) in part of that building for a time. He often visited Louie's. "It was a great place. He (Louie) was a great talker." Pieper, who now lives in Hanover, Ont., believes the car in the photo is a 1932 Plymouth. Louis and Alice Kenyon \emdash he was born in Waterloo County, but she was from Minnesota and they were married in 1914 in California \emdash had seven children. One of them, Walter Andrew Kenyon, obtained a PhD in archeology from the University of Toronto and became a prominent curator (specializing in Ontario archeology) at the Royal Ontario Museum. Before his death in 1986, he wrote numerous books and appeared on an early CBC Television show called Who Knows? in which panellists tried to identify artifacts from area museums. David Moore says he remembers seeing Walter Kenyon on this TV program as a boy. "He sounded just like Louie," Moore says. In the early 1950s Louis and Alice Kenyon sold their business to Keith Lovett, who continued to run a tobacco shop there and began selling guns, a business that grew into Lovett's Rod & Gun Centre. Lovett's moved in the early 1980s, shortly before many buildings in the block were demolished. In an email, Robert Kenyon of Eugene, Ore., another son of the Kenyons, said his parents moved to Wasaga Beach, Ont., after selling the Kitchener store. When Louis died in 1967, Alice moved back to Kitchener, where she died two years later. Comments? Got a photo for this column? Contact Jon Fear at 519-895-5613 or jfear@therecord.com Flash from the Past: At Louie's you could eat, play pool, buy a magazine. (2010). TheRecord.com. Retrieved 29 November 2019, from https://www.therecord.com/living-story/2563609-flash-from-the-past-at-louie-s-you-could-eat-play-pool-buy-a-magazine/?fbclid=iwar3jgunr7qgqbl1znl5may2j92tbogzmyolp6gboh855_1rsig3eo1hlmxg#.XeBL3COPprA.facebook

  
  

• Sources

  [S10] Book - Vol II A Biographical History of Waterloo Township and other townships of the county : being a history of the early settlers and their descendants, mostly all of Pennsylvania Dutch origin..., 495. [S57] Vit - ON - Birth Registration. Name:Lewis Benjamin Kenyon Gender:Male Birth Date:20 Sep 1889 Birth Place:Berlin, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada Father:Henry Kenyon poultry dealer Mother:Lydia Ann Sander [S2560] aaaWaterloo Township South 1891, Sect. 1 Page 42. [S4] Vit - ON - Marriage Registration. Henry Kenyon Born: Canada Age: 23 Father: Benjamin Kenyon Mother: Caroline Kenyon Born: abt 1861 Spouse: Lydia A Sauder Age: 18 born: Canada Father: Peter Sauder Mother: Mary Sauder married 2 Mar 1884 [S2560] aaaWaterloo Township South 1891, Sect. 1 Page 41.

  
  

• Event Map

  Born - 20 Sep 1889 - Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Residence - United Brethren - 1891 - Waterloo Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Married - 19 Jun 1914 - San Rafael, Marin, California, United States Died - 25 Aug 1967 - Collingwood, Nottawasaga Twp., Simcoe Co., Ontario  = Link to Google Earth