CLAYTON (RED) SINCLAIR

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CLAYTON (RED) SINCLAIR Former Free Press reporter Clayton Red Sinclair, defined himself by being born in Winnipeg - a place he moved away from as a young man but never left - and by his life's work as a journalist, historian, genealogist and book collector. But for colleagues who knew him in the newsrooms and press clubs of Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg - and with whom he always kept in touch -- it was the character of the Expos loving, Prairie history obsessed man they remember most. His friends describe him as a person of insatiable curiosity and infinite generosity. And, even with his passing at Toronto East General Hospital on Wednesday, November 9, 2005 - a man of endless inspiration to his nephews, Gordon Jr. and David Sinclair. To them Uncle Clayton was a person they idolized as children, tried to emulate as journalists and people and, finally, the man they saw as a second father when his older brother, Gordon Sinclair Sr., had a fatal stroke in the Free Press newsroom nearly 30 years ago. William Clayton Red Sinclair was born in Winnipeg - on September 10, 1930, the second son of George Peat Sinclair and Elizabeth Smith McCulloch, immigrant Scots who had arrived in Canada 20 years earlier. He and Marcelle Violet Carter of Kapuskasing, ON, were wed in Montreal, May 24, 1958. Educated in Winnipeg schools, he joined the Winnipeg Free Press editorial department in January, 1949, covering the police and labour beats. By June 1952 he was covering the waterfront beat for The Gazette of Montreal. By late 1962, he moved over as information secretary to the federally-appointed Board of Trustees of the Maritime Transportation Unions. After three years there Clayton joined the Financial Times of Canada, where he wrote, edited and ran the Montreal paper's Toronto bureau. During this extended period, he was nominated for a National Business Writing award and provided special service to Time magazine, The Times of London England, Canadian Banker and served as Montreal correspondent for Maclean's magazine, the Toronto Daily Star and the New York Journal of Commerce. His genealogical pursuits created a full-fledged genealogy of the 1772 Carters of what now is New Brunswick - his wife's family - and made major inroads into identifying the 1910 Sinclair family of Winnipeg. A year before he died the University of Manitoba received his most treasured legacy to Canadian history. It was his personal collection of Western Canadian books, including what may have been the largest collection of Manitobiana held in private hands outside of the province. He is survived by his wife, Marcelle of Toronto, his nephews, Gordon Jr. (Athina Panopoulos) and David Sinclair (Catherine) of Winnipeg, sisters-in-law Rosemarie Shaw (Tom) of Vancouver, Margaret Firth of Kitchener and Barbara Trottier (Guy) of Ingersoll and numerous grand nieces and nephews. A memorial service will be held Saturday, November 19 at 1:00 p.m. in Thomson In the Park 1291 McGillivray Blvd. In lieu of flowers donations may be made to the Manitoba Historical Society or The Parkinson Foundation of Canada, 390 Bay St., #710, P.O. Box 19341, Toronto, ON M7Y 3M1. THOMSON IN THE PARK Funeral Home and Cemetery 1291 McGillivray Blvd. - 925-1120 (between Pembina and Waverley)

As published in Winnipeg Free Press on Nov 12, 2005