Louis Pannabaker Kribs^[1]

1857 - 1898  (41 years)

• Name	Louis Pannabaker Kribs
  Born	27 Feb 1857	Waterloo Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [2, 3, 4]
  Gender	Male
  Interesting	newspaper, story
  Name	Lewis Kribs
  Residence	1861	Hespeler (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [2]
  	Christian
  Residence	1871	Waterloo Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [3]
  	Methodist
  Occupation	1880	Toronto, York Co., Ontario, Canada   [5]
  	editor
  Residence	1880	Toronto, York Co., Ontario, Canada   [5]
  Eby ID Number	00087-5106.4
  Died	24 Mar 1898	Ottawa, Carleton Co., Ontario, Canada   [4]
  Buried	New Hope Cemetery, Hespeler (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [4]
  Person ID	I9925	Generations
  Last Modified	25 Apr 2024

  
  

  Father	Reeve Lewis Lorenzo Kribs,   b. 1 Dec 1829, Eramosa Twp., Wellington Co., Ontario, Canada ,   d. 11 Mar 1908, Hespeler (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  (Age 78 years)
  Mother	Elizabeth Pannabaker,   b. 26 Jan 1832, Waterloo Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada ,   d. 21 Sep 1906, Hespeler (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  (Age 74 years)
  Married	11 May 1852	Trinity Anglican Church, Cambridge, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [6]
  Family ID	F2872	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Elizabeth A. "Millie" Cliff,   b. 10 May 1855, Preston (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada ,   d. 23 Aug 1944, Hespeler (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  (Age 89 years)
  Married	24 Aug 1880	Toronto, York Co., Ontario, Canada   [5]
  Children	1. Hazel Leota Kribs,   b. 25 Jan 1884, Toronto, York Co., Ontario, Canada ,   d. 7 Feb 1973, Cambridge, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  (Age 89 years)   2. Cecil J. Kribs,   b. Feb 1892, Toronto, York Co., Ontario, Canada ,   d. 15 Dec 1912, Toronto, York Co., Ontario, Canada  (Age ~ 20 years)   3. Mollie Kribs,   b. Jan 1893, , Ontario, Canada ,   d. Yes, date unknown   4. Krotwood Kribs,   b. Dec 1894, , Ontario, Canada ,   d. Yes, date unknown
  Last Modified	26 Apr 2024
  Family ID	F47854	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Photos

  Louis P. Kribs Mar 25, 1898-Toronto World

  
  

• Notes

  KRIBS, LOUIS P., journalist, publisher, and author; b. 27 Feb. 1857 in Hespeler (Cambridge), Upper Canada, son of Ludwig (Lewis) Kribs, carpenter, and Elizabeth Pannebecker; m. 1880 Millie Cliff, and they adopted six children; d. 24 March 1898 in Ottawa. Educated in Hespeler, Louis P. Kribs worked as a youth in the "lumber camps north of Barrie." In the late 1870s he entered journalism as a reporter for the Toronto Globe but soon moved to Barrie to become editor of the Northern Advance. Later he became editor and proprietor of the Bruce Herald in Walkerton. He sold that paper in 1884 and returned to Toronto to join the News under the innovative Edmund Ernest Sheppard*, first as city editor and then, using the pseudonym Henry Pica, as the author of a popular series of articles featuring commentary on events of the day. According to American critic Walter Blackburn Harte, Kribs "did the best work of his life in his struggle to make a success of the News." He left the News and went to Ottawa as parliamentary correspondent for the Toronto Daily Mail for one session, but after that journal renounced the policies of the Conservative government [see Christopher William Bunting], he resigned and edited the Daily Standard in Toronto, a campaign journal established by the Conservatives during the general election of 1887. Kribs next worked for the Toronto World but when the Conservative Empire was founded later in 1887, he became its news editor and afterwards its Ottawa correspondent. He was elected president of the Parliamentary Press Gallery in 1891. The immensely likeable Kribs was described by newspaperman Hector Willoughby Charlesworth* as a "bulky blonde figure who looked like a German comedian and was nick-named 'The Crown Prince.'" A gifted oboe player, he often whiled away late hours at the Empire, Charlesworth recounted, in "melancholy duets" with James Watson Curran on trombone. His flair for fun, hoaxes, and provocation had earlier buttressed Sheppard's efforts to revitalize the News, but with mixed results. Kribs's false announcement in 1885 that Sir John A. Macdonald had retired caused excitement; however, his unfortunate repetition in print that year of a story that the 65th Battalion of Montreal had shirked its duty in the North-West rebellion led to a libel suit against Sheppard. Four years later, after he had left the News, his dismissal at a municipal campaign meeting in Toronto of John Ross Robertson*'s Evening Telegram as a "ratsheet" almost caused a riot. Though he had shared the social radicalism of William Wallace* and fellow newsmen Thomas Phillips Thompson* and Alexander Whyte Wright* in the 1880s, Kribs was a persistent Conservative in politics. John Stephen Willison* of the Globe, who endured Kribs's gibes in Ottawa at the time of the affair concerning Thomas McGreevy in 1891, charitably recalled Kribs as "devoted to 'the party,' belligerent when his idols were defamed, but so abounding in human kindness that his partisan ferocity had the flavour of comedy." During the federal election campaign of 1891, Macdonald's last, Kribs reputedly coined the party slogan "The Old Man, the Old Policy and the Old Flag." Like most members of the journalistic fraternity of central Canada, Kribs was an outspoken critic of temperance. In 1892, when the royal commission on the liquor traffic in Canada was appointed, he resigned from the Empire to represent the brewing and distilling interests. He presented a hard-hitting brief to the commission, replete with facts and figures drawn from all over Canada and the United States, to show that "drunkenness is greater, crime is greater, infractions of the law are more numerous, while general prosperity is less under a prohibitive than under a license law." In 1894 he produced a summary of the commission's Report for the Canadian Brewers' and Distillers' Association. As well, Kribs edited the Advocate (Toronto), a journal that represented those interests during the two years that it existed (1894-95). Although he was an Orangeman, Kribs took up his pen in 1895 in support of the Roman Catholic minority of Manitoba, whose loss of school rights had become a burning national issue [see D'Alton McCarthy]. In a vigorous and able pamphlet he argued that the Canadian constitution embodied compacts guaranteeing the rights of minorities. Parliament's failure to uphold the compact in the case of the Catholics in Manitoba would, in his view, be a "triumph of expediency over right," "a despicable yielding up of the weak to the strong," and contrary to "every rule of British fair play." Kribs thus took high constitutional and moral ground. Archbishop Adélard Langevin* of St Boniface mentioned his pamphlet when he rebuked Liberal leader Wilfrid Laurier*, who opposed federal remedial legislation, for not speaking out in support of the minority. Kribs was ailing for the last few years of his life, evidently from the effects of typhoid fever, and he resided quietly in Weston (Toronto). He nevertheless took an active part in the Conservative election campaign of 1896. He died during a visit to Ottawa two years later and was buried in Hespeler. Kribs had been prominent as a journalist, particularly in Ontario, and, although he held strong opinions politically, he was highly popular with journalists of all shades of opinion. At his death there were many tributes to both his ability and his genial and benevolent nature. The Globe commented: "The blues used to take wings at the sight of his burly frame and the sound of his friendly voice and hearty laugh. As a writer he was full of force and rollicking humor, but although he might hit an opponent hard and overwhelm him with harmless fun, there was never a suspicion of vemon in his invective or in his mirth. Generous, manly, clear and vigorous in intellect, sound in heart, his death is, in no merely conventional sense, a loss to the community." Lovell Clark Kribs is the author of Report of Louis P. Kribs in connection with the investigation held by the Canadian royal commission on the liquor traffic (Toronto, 1894) and The Manitoba school question considered historically, legally and controversially (Toronto, 1895). NA, MG 26, G, 9, Langevin to Laurier, 11 May 1895; RG 31, C1, 1861, 1871, Hespeler. W. B. Harte, "Canadian journalists and journalism," New England Magazine (Boston), new ser., 5 (1891-92): 437. Daily Mail and Empire, 25 March 1898. Evening News (Toronto), 25 March 1898. Globe, 25 March 1898. Montreal Daily Star, 24 March 1898. Toronto World, 25 March 1898. Canadian men and women of the time (Morgan; 1898). E. E. Eby and J. B. Snyder, A biographical history of early settlers and their descendants in Waterloo Township, with Supplement, ed. E. D. Weber (Kitchener, Ont., 1971), 254. Christopher Armstrong and H. V. Nelles, The revenge of the Methodist bicycle company: Sunday streetcars and municipal reform in Toronto, 1888-1897 (Toronto, 1977). H. [W.] Charlesworth, Candid chronicles: leaves from the note book of a Canadian journalist (Toronto, 1925), 76-81. Cook, Regenerators. J. S. Willison, Reminiscences, political and personal (Toronto, 1919), 120. Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online 2000 University of Toronto/Université Laval ____________ DEATH OF LOUIS P. KRIBS. Ottawa, March 24.- (Special.) - Profound regret is felt in Parliamentary and newspaper circles at the untimely death of Louis P. Kribs, the well-known journalist. Mr. Kribs arrived in Ottawa just a fort night ago, and the day after his arrival was attacked with hemorrhage of the lungs. His condition has varied considerably since then, but this morning he was noticed to be gradually sinking. When death came he was attended by his wife and brother, Mr. W. A. Kribs, M.L.A. The remains were conveyed to Hespeler by the C.P.R. train to-night, and the funeral will take place in that village on Saturday evening. There was a representative gathering of M.P.'s and newspaperer men at the station to pay their last tribute of respect to one of the best fellows who ever breathed. The floral offerings from Ottawa friends were numerous, chief among them being a beautiful wreath from Mr. Kribs' old confreres in the gallery. Sketch of His Career. Louls P. Kribs was born, at Hespeler, Ont., Fet. 27, 1857. He came from Pennsyivania Dutch stock, his father having emigrated from the "Brotherly Love" State and settled at Hespeler, where he started a milling business in connection with farming. There are several sons in the family, and W. A. Kribs, the Conservative member- elect for South Waterloo, is a brother of deceased. About 25 years ago L. P. Kribs came down from the lumber camps north of Barrle to "look for a job" in Toronto. He went to The Globe office, and met the late Hon. George Brown, who looked him over think Mr. Kribs did more for the Conservative party in that period than any other one man. Afterward Mr. Kribs filled responsible positions on The World. When The Empire was started Mr. Kribs became news editor, but left that position in 1892 to represent the brewers and distillers before the Royal Commission which was appointed to investigate and report as to the desirability of a prohibitory law, his office being to show that prohibition was not desirable. Later on Mr. Kribs started The Advocate, and when, after about two years, that weekly ceased publication, Mr. Kribs, whose health had become impaired, retired to a private life at Weston, where he has remained for several years. About a year ago he was attacked by a hemorrhage of the stomach, and his life was despaired of, but his vigorous constitution rallied. He was never strong afterwards, however, and his late trip to Ottawa brought on a recurrence which terminated in death. Among those who worked with him deceased was held in the highest esteem. His was a most benevolent, nature, and many a "poor body" and street walf has been comforted by his unostentatious charity. Mar 25, 1898-Toronto World

  
  

• 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..., 152. [S1837] Census - ON, Waterloo, Hespeler - 1861, Div. 1 Page 8. [S2767] aaaWaterloo Township 1871 South, Sect. 2 Page 41. [S3231] Find A Grave, Cemetery, N., America, N., Municipality, W., & Cemetery, N. (1857). Louis Pannabaker Kribs (1857-1898) - Find A Grave.... Findagrave.com. Retrieved 11 October 2019, from https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/105758426. [S4] Vit - ON - Marriage Registration. Louis Pannabake Kribs, 23, Occ: Editor - Toronto, b. Canada s/o Louis and Eliza Kribs married Milie Cliff, 24 res. Toronto, b. Canada, s/o Charles and Clara married 24 Aug 1880 Toronto [S574] Church Records - ON, Waterloo, Cambridge - Trinity Anglican. Lewis Kribs of Waterloo Tp, married Elizabeth Pannabeker of, Waterloo Tp., 11 May 1852

  
  

• Event Map

  Born - 27 Feb 1857 - Waterloo Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Residence - Christian - 1861 - Hespeler (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Residence - Methodist - 1871 - Waterloo Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Occupation - editor - 1880 - Toronto, York Co., Ontario, Canada Residence - 1880 - Toronto, York Co., Ontario, Canada Married - 24 Aug 1880 - Toronto, York Co., Ontario, Canada Died - 24 Mar 1898 - Ottawa, Carleton Co., Ontario, Canada Buried - - New Hope Cemetery, Hespeler (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  = Link to Google Earth