Friday, June 12, 2015

In light of recent prison escape events: Charles Ricklefs, career criminal, in the 1940 census

This is an image from the 1940 U.S. census of a listing for my great grand uncle Charles Ricklefs, once again in prison, I believe this time for the bank robbery in Mattituck, Long Island. He actually started out being sentenced 15-30 years to Sing Sing Prison in 1938, eligible for parole in 1948 - but as you can see from this picture, by 1940 he was a resident of Clinton State Prison in the way upstate New York village of Dannemora. These names should sound familiar to you as Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora is where those two murderers escaped from last week - it's still in the news because they're still on the run. Charlie is still in Dannemora in 1942 per his World War II draft registration. I don't know what happened to him after that, but I hope Dannemora was his last stop after 30 years of being in and out of the prison system. Oh those black sheep - they sure do make family history research more interesting!!