Representative Lewis J. Neff View All Years

Lewis J. Neff

Pottawattamie County

Representative from Pottawattamie county, was born September 21, 1868, in Livingston county, Illinois, and emigrated to Iowa with his parents when he was five years of age. His parents purchased 160 acres of land in Monroe township, Shelby county, and settled thereon. He attended the rural and Walnut public schools and aided his father on the farm until he was 18 years of age, when he taught his first term of school in the district just north of his home district and in which he formerly attended school. Is a graduate of the Western Normal College, Highland Park College, and Drake University. He worked his way through college and the university by teaching school, and has had seven years' experience teaching and superintending Iowa schools. He now holds an Iowa state teachers' certificate which he has kept up since he quit teaching. He was admitted to practice law in October, 1899, by examination and is a member of the Pottawattamie county and the Iowa State Bar Associations. He was married to Miss Ruth W. Miller, a school teacher of Harlan, Iowa, November 18, 1906. They have no children. He has always taken an active part in politics and is a republican, having served a number of times on the election boards of Shelby and Pottawattamie counties. Has served as member of the Walnut board of education and as its president, but is now serving as secretary of the board. He is serving as mayor of Walnut for the third time, and is president of the Walnut volunteer fire department which he helped organize when he first became mayor. He has been very active in lodge circles, and is serving his 14th term as secretary of his local Odd Fellow lodge, and is now lodge representative to the I.O.O.F. Grand Lodge for Pottawattamie county, and is also serving his eighth year as secretary of the local Masonic lodge of Walnut. Elected representative in 1914.

House District 31