Yaroo Michael Neesan
Yaroo Michael Neesan, also known as Jared Michael Neesan, was an Assyrian-American priest of the Assyrian Church of the East. He was among the first Assyrians to emigrate to the United States.
Biography
Neesan was born in 1853 in the Urmia region of Persia.In 1881, he emigrated to the United States to study theology.
Neesan married Gulnaz, with whom he had a daughter named Beatrice. She was engaged to Patriarch Mar Benyamin Shimun's brother Hormizd. However, in early 1915, Hormizd was shot by Turks in Istanbul shortly before the deportation of Armenian intellectuals on 24 April 1915. Beatrice was said to have died of shock from the shooting of Bishop Mar Dinkha in February 1915 before the eyes of the Neesan family, although Coakley attributed her death to typhoid fever. Neesan's wife Gulnaz died 15 days afterwards.
In 1917, Yaroo Neesan remarried, this time to an Assyrian nurse named Hawa.
In August 1918, during the Sayfo of World War I, Neesan joined the Assyrians during their march to safety to Hamadan and stayed in Baqubah refugee camp near Baghdad.
He moved to Flint, Michigan in 1924, where he served as the leader of the nascent Assyrian community. In Flint, he was the priest of Mar Shimun Bar Sabbae Parish. He died on September 24, 1937, in the United States.