Wendy, Oakley, and I met with Kurt and Kyle Shaha on 1/4/2013 in Mt. Ayr, Iowa. It's a tiny town of less than 2,000 people. Kurt and Kyle farm the same land that James Wesley Shaha Sr. did back in the 1850s. They are descendants of Joseph Shaha who was the brother of James Wesley Shaha Jr,my great great grandfather. I took some notes from the meeting:
First off here's their contact info:
Kurt Shaha: 641 340 0428, kurt.shaha@gmail.com
Kyle Shaha: 641 464 2732
They were both really friendly and I'm sure they wouldn't mind chatting with anyone about our shared ancestry.
We talked a lot about our Irish origins. Kyle's daughter Krista has done a lot of research on it and they visited Cork County Ireland a few years ago when she was stationed in Germany with her husband (he's out of the service now and they live in Georgia). They think that we came from that county and that our original last name was probably something like Shahan, Shanahan, or O'Shanahan. I haven't been able to get in touch with Krista yet but it appears that she's the real expert on this stuff. They think that the initial spelling of our name was actually Saha when John arrived around the 1830s. It was changed to Shaha after John and his wife Hannah Rickabaugh died in Ohio around 1853 and his kids moved out to Iowa. They seemed to think that John came over during the potato famine but that really hit from 1845-1852 and John got married in 1836 here in the USA so far as I can tell. John probably arrived in New York since that was the most common port of arrival. Anyway, conditions were probably pretty lousy in Ireland at any rate so he came here. I guess a lot of last names got mixed up when people emigrated so we were probably one of the many.
They shared a lot of family stories. I'll try to put them in context. John Shaha emigrated from Ireland around 1830 or so. He married Hannah Rickabaugh probably in Ohio. Her father was Reuben Rickabaugh and he apparently fought in the Revolutionary War. The Rickabaughs may also have helped construct the first iron bridge in the USA in Rock Bridge, VA. Anyway, John and Hannah settled in Ohio and had at least four children: Andrew Jackson, James Wesley, Lucinda, and Benjamin Franklin. John and Hannah died around 1853 and the children moved to Iowa shortly thereafter. According to Kurt and Kyle, they were planning to continue on to Portland, Oregon but George and William Shaha (two of James Wesley's children) died of typhoid on the way over. They buried them in Mt. Ayr, Iowa and decided to stay there. Lucinda married a gentleman with the last name of McClain and their descendants still live in the area. There's a cemetery in Knoxville, IA where several of the McClains are buried. Andrew Jackson moved to Missouri and Benjamin Franklin died of typhoid in Nashville, TN as part of Sherman's army during the Civil War. James Wesley had several children including James Wesley Jr. and Joseph. James Wesley Jr. is my great grandfather while Joseph is Kurt and Kyle's great grandfather. Joseph stayed in Iowa. I'm not sure whether it was James Wesley Jr. or his son Charles Lionel that first moved from Iowa to Kansas but that was the eventual route they took. James Henry Shaha was born in Lawrence, KS and we are all a little familiar with the rest of that story. :)
Some info on James Wesley Shaha Sr. Apparently, he had another family in Oklahoma. For about ten years he left his family in Iowa and married another woman in Oklahoma. It was a real family skeleton so no one's sure about who she was but apparently there are still Shahas in Oklahoma. He had the family Bible which had been brought over from Ireland. Unfortunately, there was a fire insurance salesman who was down on his luck and decided to start some house fires to drum up business. He burned the Shaha home and the Bible was lost. Total bummer. They bought a new one that Kurt and Kyle showed me (see attached pictures) that dates back to the 1860s or so.
Joseph Shaha was a school teacher and farmer. He continued to farm the land that James Wesley Sr. had farmed and Kurt and Kyle continue to work the same land. They grow corn and soy beans. The farm is called Shaha farms and the Shaha cemetery is on the property. They also have a construction company called Shaha construction. Pretty cool.
We talked about random Shahas that Kurt had found across the country. Apparently Everett Shaha is buried in New Mexico in another Shaha cemetery down there. Everett was Charles Lionel's brother I think. Kurt also mentioned a Chuck Shaha living in Long Beach, California, and a Steve Shaha who worked at the Pentagon. His train was late on 9/11 otherwise he would have been killed that day. He never wentback to work there.
Kurt and Kyle had an uncle named Murray Shaha who was a tanker in Patton's army during WWII. They told me a story that one time he was hunkered down under his tank and started chatting with another soldier down there. It turned out the guy was from Kellerton, Iowa which is another dinky town just a few miles from Mt. Ayr.
That's the basic gist of it anyway. Fun stuff! Let me know if you guys have any questions or anything.
Kyle is on the far left, Kurt, then me with the Shaha family Bible 2.0.
Joseph Shaha is on the far left in this picture. The back of the photo is the next image.
These are the births and deaths pages from the Shaha Bible.
Class picture with Murray Shaha as a kid.
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