John STRANAHAN was born in Columbus, Ohio, December 12, 1817, and while a small boy was "bound out" to a cabinet and chair marker to learn the trade, as it was the practice in those days - to bind a boy out to learn a trade. After he finished his apprenticeship, he moved to Pittsbur, a small village in Indiana, where he met and married Charity GILLHAM. To this marriage were born three daughters. Then his wife died and he later married Eliza Jane CHAMBERS, and to this union were born eight children, of whom only four are living [1936], William, of Kansas; Anna, of Oregon; Clare KILLINGSWORTH, of Clarinda; and Charles STRANAHAN, of Mount Ayr.

Mr. STRANAHAN was raised a democrat but quit the party on the election of BUCHANAN. He said he would not vote for an old bachelor for president as he thought that if he could be married twice, every man should be married at least once.

In the fall of 1855, he imigrated to Iowa and spent the winter with a brother-in-law who lived between Albia and Winterset. Then [in] the winter of 1855 he came to Mount Ayr and picked out his land one mile south of Mount Ayr, and lived there unil 1889 when he sold his farm to Andrew INGRAM, Sr., for $50 per acre, and moved to Mount Ayr where he and his wife both died in 1908, he being 91 years old.

Mr. STRANAHAN broke the ground and set out the first trees in Mount Ayr square. He had a shop in one room of his house, on a lot now [1936] owned by Sadie DOWLING, where he made chairs and spinning wheels in 1856.

He was a quiet, unassuming man, never pushed himself forward, but one could always know where he stood on all questions that cem up. He was a storng temperance man, never tasting liquor.

He and his wife were charter memebers of the M.E. church.

Some of the charis that he made in 1856 are still in use in Mount Ayr, for when he made a chair or spinning wheel, he made it to last.

Charles STRANAHAN has three chairs his father made. One was left by his father and one was given to him by Mrs. D. C. KINSELL, and one was given to him by Mrs. William FRESHWATER.

SOURCE:
LESAN, Mrs. B. M. Early History of Ringgold County: 1844 - 1937 p. 69. Blair Pub. House. Lamoni IA. 1937.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, May of 2010