Verne E. Hale

HALE, HADLEY, CHASE

Posted By: Jerry Hale (email)
Date: 5/19/2002 at 08:22:52

Verne Hale Dies; Rites Set. Tuesday (1959)

Verne E. Hale, 77, who served as Webster county treasurer for more than 30 years prior to his retirement May 31, 1951, died shortly before noon Friday at Mercy hospital after a lingering illness.

Mr. Hale, who made his home with a sister, Mrs. Maude Chase, at. 511 South Eighteenth Street for the past several years, had been hospitalized since Sept. 21, 1959.

FUNERAL SERVICES are planned Tuesday afternoon at 3 o'clock in Bruces Memorial Chapel Dr. L. D. Havighurst, pastor of First Methodist Church, will officiate. Burial will be in North Lawn cemetery.

Masonic rites will be conducted by members of Ashlar lodge, No. 111, AF and AM. Military services will be held by members of the Fort Dodge American Legion post.

BORN NOV. 4, 1882, at State Center (Marshall Co., IA), Mr. Hale was the son of the late Mr. and Mrs. James I. Hale. He lived with his parents in South Dakota and Coon Rapids, Iowa before coming to Fort Dodge in 1898.

He served as Webster county deputy treasurer before being elected treasurer in 1921.

When Mr. Hale retired as county treasurer in 1951, he had been employed at the county courthouse longer than any other person in history. (The late James J. Fitzgerald of Duncombe served 33 years as supervisor from the first district prior to his retirement in January, 1958.) Mr. Hale was elected to 16 consecutive two-year terms as county treasurer. A Republican, he rarely had a close race in the biennial elections and did little campaigning. He was the only Republican county officer to survive the Roosevelt 1andslide in 1932.

HE WAS MARRIED to Mrs. Lena M. Hadley in El Paso, Texas, in 1917. Mrs. Hale died, in May, 1950.

Mr. Hale was a member of the First Methodist church; Ashlar lodge; Delta chapter, Royal Arch Masons; Calvary Commandery of Knights, Templar; Aurora Chapter, Order of Eastern. Star, and the American Legion post. He had served with Company G of Fort Dodge in the European theater of World War and was discharged with the rank of captain in 1918. He also saw military service on the Mexican border.

SURVIVING Mr. Hale are his sister, Mrs. Chase, and a brother, Robert C. Hale of Waupaca, Wis. One brother, Wendell Hale, preceded him in death.