Sherrill Clark Webb, High School Teacher
Sherrill Clark Webb, who taught industrial arts at East Hampton High School for 40 years, died on Sept. 24 at his house on Meadow Way in East Hampton, with his son, Dr. Sheppard C. Webb of Setauket, at his side and his daughter-in-law, Tania Webb, and his grandchildren in attendance. He was 92 and had been ill for several months.
Mr. Webb was born in Southampton on Oct. 12, 1922, to Elias Latham Webb and the former Edna Healy Clark. He enlisted in the Army in 1942 while a sophomore at the University of Buffalo, and was accepted into the Air Corps. He trained in Vermont with ski planes but, because there were more pilots than planes, he transferred to the Army Corps of Engineers. After the war he went back to Buffalo University for a B.A. and earned a master’s degree from New York University.
He met his wife, Violet Caneega, known as Pinky, in 1948 when she came here to be a sixth-grade teacher and he began teaching at the high school.
Mr. Webb had the only Regents-approved high school boat building course in New York State. He also was known for helping students with auto engines. Not one to idle in his spare time, he once mentioned to a friend at Plitt Ford that he needed an engine to break down and repair, and a few days later a truck delivered a 1965 425-horsepower V-8. He had to sign a waiver that it wouldn’t be put on the roads.
Mr. and Mrs. Webb married on Sept. 6, 1950, settling in a cottage behind Vetault’s flower shop, now Wittendale’s, on Newtown Lane. They moved to the house on Meadow Way, much of which Mr. Webb built, in 1953, and he reshingled the roof by himself at the age of 85, “with my blessing,” his son said. He added that “before Meadow Way, they lived in a camp in North Sea, where they washed by skinny dipping in the pond.”
“Most of all dad was an athlete. He played football, basketball, at 5 feet 4 inches tall, and baseball in high school, and semiprofessional hockey, without a helmet, to pay for college tuition. His proudest athletic moment was playing town league baseball for the Southampton Blue Sox. He liked to point out that he had a better batting average than Carl Yastrzemski, who played for the Bridgehampton White Eagles.”
Mr. Webb was a member of the South Fork Country Club and the East Hampton Presbyterian Church, whose pastor, the Rev. Nancy Howarth, officiated at his funeral, which took place with military honors. He was buried in Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton.
In addition to his son, he is survived by three siblings, Alan Fordham Webb of Union Hall, Va., Barbara Webb Milholland of Greensboro, N.C., and Margaret Leihr of Southampton, and three grandchildren. His wife died on Sept. 26, 1993.
The family has suggested memorial contributions to Southampton Hospital, 240 Meetinghouse Lane, Southampton 11968, the East Hampton Historical Society, 101 Main Street, East Hampton 11937, or East End Hospice, 481 County Road 31, Westhampton Beach 11978.