Hello! I put this up quite some time ago. What a great surprise. Thank you.
Grace (Houser) Smith was my aunt. Don (my dad) was her little brother.
You were out to our farm (which was also Frank and Anna's farm) the summer of 1977 (I think) as I had just gotten married so was in Canada at the time...honeymoon. :)
The Smaha connection puzzles all of us. I have another cousin and a cousin by marraige both interested in this as well. Yes, it is a brick wall with the Smahas and the generation that might have a clue has few members with us now. I have found little info even here at ancestry. Aside from Joe and Fannie's names, I have little, thus my inquiry.
My Dad never talked about having any aunts, uncles or cousins on either side of his parents' families, Housers OR Smahas so that visit of yours was all new info to us and is fondly remembered. We knew our great aunts/uncles/second cousins from mom's side but not a word was ever uttered by anany of Dad's siblings about family, it was all VERY
MYSTERIOUS. Are there still Smahas in Iowa? You have a sister named Carolyn and your name...??? I have found that there are variations on the spelling of Smaha, it seems coming through immigration caused a great deal of this difficulty as names were often randomly shortened or spelled in new ways at the point of immigration. Glad to hear from you, I can send email address if you are ever interested. Merida