Jacob Kany
Jacob Kany, president of the school board of the city of Xenia and for many years engaged in the merchant-tailoring business in that city, is of European birth, a native Bavarian, but has been a resident of this country since he was twenty years of age and of Xenia since the year 1883, he having come up here from Cincinnati in that year, the year of his marriage. He was born in the town of Kleinkarlbach, in Rheinish Bavaria, March 11, 1863, son and only child of Jacob and Barbara Kany, also native Bavarians.
Reared at Kleinkarlbach. the younger Jacob Kany received his schooling in the schools of that town. Not desiring to follow the milling business, in which his father was engaged, he became apprenticed, at the age of fourteen years, to a tailor and after an apprenticeship of three years became a qualified tailor. After working at his trade as a journeyman in his home country for awhile he decided to come to the United States and when twenty years of age arrived in this country and proceeded to Cincinnati, where he had friends. That was in 1883. He secured employment at his trade in Cincinnati and in September of that same year married there a girl whom he had known in his home town and who had not long before come to this country with an uncle, the family locating in Cincinnati. Mr. Kany worked for a month at Cincinnati and then came up to Xenia, where he established his home and where he ever since has made his residence. For five years after his arrival in Xenia Mr. Kany was engaged as a tailor in the shop of Charles H. Oonk. In 1888 he opened an establishment of his own at No. 10 North Detroit street and has ever since been doing- business at that place. He started in a modest way, but the recommendations of pleased customers soon brought him additional business and it was not long until he became recognized as one, of the leading tailors in this part of the state. Mr. Kany now employs five tailors and his establishment is well equipped.
Mr. Kany has for the past eighteen years or more served as a member of the Xenia school board, for the past five years president of that body; and has thus helped to oversee the construction of all the new school buildings in the city. Mr. Kany is a Republican and, fraternally, is affiliated with the Masons, the Elks, the Knights of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen of America. He is a Royal Arch Mason and a member of the local council, Royal and Select Masters. He is affiliated with the Presbyterian church at Xenia.
It was on September 30, 1883, at Cincinnati, that Jacob Kany was united in marriage to Magdalena Schneider, who also, as noted above, was born in Bavaria, and who had come to this country with an uncle and aunt. Mr. and Mrs. Kany have one child, a son, Arthur S. Kany, who is now living in Dayton, where he owns a store devoted to the sale of automobile parts and accessories. Arthur S. Kany married Mabel Ledbetter, of Xenia, and has two children, Howard and John. Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Kany live at 665 South Detroit street.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918