Henry Schlicher Jr. was born January 9, 1908, in the Bronx, New York City, the son of Henry Sr. and Anastasia Schlicher. He had an older brother- Emil, born around 1907; and a younger sister- Mary, born around 1909. The family lived on East 159th Street in 1910, where their father supported the family as a bartender in a "liquor saloon." The parents were both immigrants, father Henry Sr. coming from Germany in 1898; and mother Anastasia from Austria/Poland in 1905. They became U.S. citizens in 1908. By 1920 they were living on Cauldwell Avenue in the Bronx, where Henry Sr. worked as a "car cleaner" for a railroad; and Anastasia worked as a "janitress" in an apartment building. Henry Jr. attended grammer school through the seventh grade, leaving school for good at the age of fourteen.
On April 15, 1932, Henry Schlicher Jr. was sentenced to five years in New York's Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, for the crime of attempted robbery of a restaurant. He was paroled on December 18, 1935.
On March 7, 1939, Henry was again on his way to an extended stay at Sing Sing, this time for fifteen years, because he "held up and robbed a bartender at gunpoint." The amount involved was $50, and this time he had a female accomplice, who was sentenced to the Women's Prison at Bedford Hills. His occupation was described as "electrician," but he had "no steady work record."
In 1940 Henry was listed as an inmate at Auburn State Prison.
Henry Schlicher Jr. died aged 89, on June 25, 1992; and was buried on Hart Island.
Sources: U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007; 1910, 1929 and 1940 U.S. Federal Censuses; New York, State Census, 1925; New York, Sing Sing Prison Admission Registers, 1865-1939.