James "Jim" Shaffer was born on May 21, 1953, in Postville, Iowa. His family moved to Vinton, Iowa where he atten­ded the Iowa Braille and Sight Sav­ing School. Jim’s father was a farmer.

Jim was an amaz­ing per­son. While in high school, Jim was a for­eign exchange stu­dent in Argen­tina. He could still speak and under­stand Span­ish!

Des­pite being born blind, he gradu­ated magna cum laude from Luther Col­lege with a double major in phys­ics and math. He moved to Aus­tin in 1980 to work as a soft­ware engin­eer. He retired from IBM in 2008 after 30 years of ser­vice.

He was mar­ried to Julie Ryder for 10 years and briefly mar­ried to Jody Shaf­fer. In Octo­ber of 1997, he mar­ried Lynn Vaughan.

Jim was an avid ham oper­ator and atten­ded many inter­na­tional ham con­ven­tions. He also wrote soft­ware for blind ham oper­at­ors.

In addi­tion, he also played fiddle, man­dolin and gui­tar. He played fiddle in a num­ber of bluegrass bands includ­ing The Johnny Bur­nett Trio, Bor­rowed Time, Piney Grove Ram­blers and Geezer Grass. Jim enjoyed going on many ocean cruises includ­ing ones to Scand­inavia and the Brit­ish Isles. He was fun-lov­ing, gen­er­ous, and had a good sense of humor.

Jim passed away on Decem­ber 2nd from com­plic­a­tions of Par­kin­son’s Dis­ease. We would like to thank the staff of the Prim­rose Assisted Liv­ing for their care of Jim.

Jim is sur­vived by his wife, Lynn Vaughan, son Kevin and wife LaTi­erra and grand­son Alister, sis­ter Carol Geater and brother-in-law Hank Vaughan. He is also sur­vived by pets Wally, Rusty, and Brindi.

In lieu of flowers please con­trib­ute to the Health Alli­ance for Aus­tin Musi­cians (HAAM): www.myhaam.org or the Par­kin­son’s Found­a­tion: www.par­kin­son.org. Fond memor­ies and expres­sions of sym­pathy may be shared on his trib­ute page at www.Aus­tin­Nat­ur­al­Fu­ner­als.com

He will be missed.