Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Usage examples of "shoo-fly".
Pie trees can bear any kind of pie, usually several types on the same plant: delicious ones like pizza, pecan, shoo-fly, mince, shepherd's, cheese, chocolate cream, as well as offensive varieties like crabapple, pepperpot, pineapple, pe-can, and so on.
Then suddenly Tomas snatched a puff-pastry from the table and was gone before the shoo-fly lash began to descend.
Indeed, Doe led her even higher, to the lavish second story, where instead of a drawing room Peggy found herself being led to the porch and, yes, the cane chairs, the pitcher of iced lemonade, the swaying shoo-flies, the slaveboy with a fan almost the size of his own body, and, standing at a potted plant with a watering can in her hand, Lady Ashworth herself.