Roberta Sherlock, retired French teacher at 2 South Shore high schools, of Commack, dies at 88

To her family, Roberta Sherlock was "mom," "grandma," "great-grandma" and, to her late husband, she was sometimes "Berta." But to the students she taught French for nearly 30 years at St. John the Baptist High School, in West Islip, and then Sayville High School, in West Sayville, she was Madame — pronounced the French way — Sherlock.

"My first exposure to French was with Madame Sherlock in 10th grade," recalled Sayville High alumna Whitney O’Donnell, of Northport, who became a teacher at Lloyd Harbor School, where she is now a librarian. O’Donnell had taken two units of French with Sherlock that sophomore year before taking French III her junior year with another teacher.

As a senior, O'Donnell said, she "wanted to take French IV, but it wouldn't fit into my schedule. But I had a period free every other day, and that was Madame Sherlock's lunch period. So she gave up her lunch period every other day so I could do independent study in French IV. That was when I got to know her the best, because I'd be sitting there, she'd be eating her lunch and it was one-on-one [tutoring]. ... She was willing to give up [time] every other day and eat her lunch with a 17-year-old kid."

Roberta Sherlock, who lived 82 of her 88 years on Long Island, died of natural causes on Aug. 4 at her home in upstate Bedford, where she moved in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic to be near one of her daughters.

"She believed the most beautiful language in the world was French," said her son Bob Sherlock, of Huntington. "So she was primarily a French teacher, then Spanish and then English as a second language," he said. Beyond any specific curricula, he added, "she was a teacher in everything, not just as a profession."

Born Roberta Jean Boccafola in Huntington on Oct. 1, 1937, she was the eldest of three children of immigrant parents: Amato Boccafola, called Matty, a plumber and mechanic from Parma, Italy, and Delia Daly Boccafola, called Della, from Tuam, County Galway, Ireland. Roberta attended St. Hugh of Lincoln School in Huntington Station and then St. Dominic High School in Oyster Bay, graduating in 1955.

On Aug. 27 of that year, she married John Patrick "Jack" Sherlock, 10 years her senior, a college graduate who had served in the U.S. Army from 1945-47 before going on to earn a postgraduate degree from New York University. He became a three-decade English teacher and track coach at Half Hollow Hills High School East, in Dix Hills, and was an adjunct English professor at SUNY Farmingdale and Nassau Community College for 29 and 14 years, respectively. He died in 2018.

Roberta Sherlock at the time of her marriage was a stenographer at the Equitable Life Assurance Society in Manhattan, and also taught ballroom dancing in Huntington. The couple lived in Forest Hills, Queens, before moving in 1960 to Commack, where they spent the rest of their lives except for a short stint in St. James. They had a second home on Hutchinson Island, Florida. Roberta, who earned an associate degree in education from Suffolk County Community College and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in secondary education from Stony Brook University, retired in 2001.

"She was concerned about education overall and about education to the less fortunate," including immigrants to whom she taught ESL, said her son. "She would want to underscore that you need to make sure that you’re actively involved in not just parenting, but parenting for a better future."

And she left a twin legacy of family and education. "One of the parents came up to me" during her teaching years, said O’Donnell, "and she said, ‘Oh, Kelly Anne [Sherlock] has a surprise for you tomorrow.’ ” The next day, that middle-schooler "came into class with a card with my name, but my French name, in the most beautiful penmanship. And the minute I saw my French name and beautiful penmanship, I was like, ‘Madame Sherlock!’ And Kelly Anne said, ‘That's my grandmother.’ And I opened it and inside was this beautiful card written to me in French."

In addition to her son, Roberta Sherlock is survived by six other children: sons John Patrick III, of Locust Valley, Stuart, of Florida, Kevin, of Maryland, Richard, of Fulda, Germany, and Christopher, of Texas; daughters Ellen Sherlock, of California, and Elizabeth O’Shea, of upstate Bedford; sister Adele Boccafola Hoffman, of Dix Hills; 19 grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. A brother, Msgr. Kenneth C. Boccafola, predeceased her on May 9.

Visitation was Aug. 7 at the M.A. Connell Funeral Home in Huntington Station. A Mass was celebrated the following day at St. Hugh of Lincoln Roman Catholic Church in that hamlet. Burial followed at St. Patrick Cemetery in Huntington.