Felix Oscar Schlag

Born at Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany on Dec. 4, 1891 to Carl and Theresa Schlag, Felix, as a young man, studied classical art at the Royal Academy of Art in Munich. To earn a living, he had became a laborer with a pickaxe and shovel to make ends meet and at night was a restaurant busboy.

He served in the German Army during WWI and I was wounded and after a long hospitalization tried to return to a normal life. Felix married Anna in Munich Germany in 1920. They had three children together, daughter Feliza, born on January 20, 1920 in Munich Germany, son Leo on May 17, 1921 on the outskirts of Munich and a daughter, Hilda, on September 17th, 1929 in Conn.

Felix worked as an auto stylist for General Motors in Detroit. While in Chicago in 1934, winning several commissions for sculptures on public buildings and first prize for a model of a fountain and first prize for the design of a Red Cross medal. In the fall of 1937, Felix entered a competition to design a new nickel.

On April 20, 1938, Felix received a telegram from the Superintendent of the Section of Painting and Sculpture with the good news that he had won the competition. On July 21, Mint Director Ross advised Felix that the clay models had been approved by the acting Secretary of the Treasury and that the Philadelphia Mint was being instructed to send the prize money.

Later he sculpted a relief for the White Hall, Illinois post office. He became an American citizen in about 1938.

In 1939 he completed the twice life-size stone carving for the City of Chicago Heights and a small athletic grouping for Champaign, Illinois. Felix's second marriage was Ethel Minnie Levin in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Nov. 22, 1940.

Felix and his wife moved to Owosso, Michigan in 1943. He bought a building located at 107 W. Exchange St. and opened a photography business. But by 1963, he gave up photography and went back to sculpting and designed a memorial medal of Herbert C. Hoover for the National Commemorative Society of Philadelphia. And sculpted a bust of Lincoln and a commemorative coin-metal of Betsy Ross for the Societe Commemorative de Femmes Celebres (Society for the Commemoration of Famous Women.)

His initials, F.S., were added to all nickels made after July 1966.

Mr. Schlag died March 9, 1974 and is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Owosso. His widow died in 1992.

Shiawassee County, Michigan History Index