Neff, Roland Edgar (1919-1986)

NEFF, HOUGHMAN, HOUGHAM, FISHER, BURGIN, HALSNE, STEEN

Posted By: Debbie Greenfield (email)
Date: 12/12/2020 at 10:52:00

Daily Freeman Journal, Webster City, Iowa, Wednesday, March 12, 1986

Roland E. Neff, 67, longtime Webster City resident and former chief of police, died Tuesday, March 11 at the Hamilton County Hospital. He had been in ill health for the past 5 years.

Funeral services will be 1:30 p.m. Friday at the Foster Funeral Home with Pastor Richard Laird officiating. Burial will be Graceland Cemetery. A flag folding ceremony will be conducted by the American Legion Post 191.

Friends may call at the funeral home after 5 p.m. today.

Roland Edgar Neff, son of Edgar and Minnie Houghman [Hougham] Neff, was born Feb. 7, 1919 at Bloomington, Ill. He moved with his family to the Williams area where he was reared and educated. He was employed at the Forrester Dairy.

He entered the service in 1942 and served with the Navy in World War II. He was discharged in 1945 and returned to Webster City and his position with the dairy.

He was married on June 2, 1946 to Dee C. Fisher, at the Little Brown Church in Nashua. He joined the Webster City police department in 1948 and for several years served as a captain. He was instrumental in the forming of the auxiliary police force.

He was appointed chief of police in 1964. He retired in 1972 from the police department. The couple then moved to Lakewood, Colo., where he was a heavy equipment maintenance operator for the city. Due to ill health, he returned to the area in 1980 and resided in Fort Dodge for one year, and then moved back to Webster City.

He is survived by his wife; two daughters, Cheri Neff, Fort Dodge, and Rolanda (Mrs. Gary) Burgin, Webster City; five grandchildren, one great-grandson; two sisters and a brother, Gladys (Mrs. Milo) Halsne, Webster City, Marjorie Steen, Klamath Falls, Ore., and Darwin Neff, Fort Dodge; as well as several nieces and nephews.

He was preceded in death by his parents and one brother, Everett.

Mr. Neff was a member of the New Testament Church of Christ, the Disabled Veterans and Veterans of Foreign Wars.