Former Oyster Bay-East Norwich teacher found the music in life

Music is an essential aspect of the human experience, expressing emotions, memories and sentiments and allowing people to view the world through new lenses. Music defined the life of Rosemary Ann Clarke (nee Walker) of Bayville, a long-time music teacher in the Oyster Bay-East Norwich Central School District and musician, who died on July 29.

Clarke was born in Flushing, New York, in 1930, to Rosemary Eckerman and Robert Gilmore Walker. Following the deaths of her parents when she was a young girl, Clarke and her sister Doris were raised in Syracuse by their uncle and aunt.

Clarke grew up in a musical family, where her great-grandfather, Christian Eckerman, had co-founded one of Syracuse’s best-known German singing societies. As a student taught by the Sisters of St. Joseph, she also learned piano, inspiring a lifelong relationship with the instrument.

Her daughter Rory Clarke said her mother was always a pianist first and foremost, although as a music teacher she had a working knowledge of several other instruments.

“As a music instructor she had a passing familiarity with a lot of instruments, but really the one she played was the piano and she played extremely well,” Clarke said of her mother. “She pretty much played that all her life.”

She attended Nazareth College in Rochester where she studied musical education. Following her graduation, she received a scholarship for a master’s program at New York University, and while studying in Manhattan, she met her future-husband Owen Clarke.

Clarke and her husband would go on to have five children who survive her: Rosemary “Rory,” Owen (Laura), Sarah “Salli” Hegarty (Jim), Andrew (Sherry) and Martha Loer. In 1957 the family moved to Bayville, where Clarke would live for the rest of her life.

Upon moving to Long Island, Clarke quickly established herself as a music teacher, first working briefly in the Valley Stream and Locust Valley school districts. But the majority of her academic career was spent in the Oyster Bay-East Norwich School District where, for over 20 years, she served as a choir and flutophone teacher.

For most of her time in Oyster Bay-East Norwich Clarke worked at the John F. Bermingham Elementary School in Oyster Bay, which was demolished in 1990. One of her fellow music teachers in the district, Stephen Walker (no relation), described how she helped inspire students’ love of music and worked tirelessly with teachers and children to incorporate music into a wide variety of events, from school plays to the 50th anniversary of the founding of Bayville.

“She was just a wonderful music teacher. All the students loved her,” Walker said. “I remember how she would bring out students who you might not think of as being the lead or having a part in the school play, but she was able to recognize a student who had a gift but needed to be encouraged.”

In her last two years as a teacher, Clarke was brought up to the high school, were she directed the school plays “The Boyfriend” and “Bye Bye Birde.”

Outside of teaching, Clarke continued to keep music in her life, serving in the music ministry at Saint Gertrude’s Roman Catholic Church for over 60 years. Clarke was choir director and lead organist for the church for many years, working tirelessly right up until the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic.

Clarke also worked with Walker outside of the classroom, when in the early 1980’s he discovered a collection of classical songs about Theodore Roosevelt and his family members on a trip to Harvard University. Walker explained how upon discovering the old ditties, he showed them to Clarke, who immediately began picking out the most fun songs and began teaching them to her students.

Together, Clarke and Walker organized a group of singers and musicians who performed a community sing-along of the historic music. The group would continue to perform together and would eventually develop into the Sagamore Hill Band & Roosevelt Songbirds.

Outside of music, Clarke loved swimming, flowers and reading, and loved word games such as the New York Times crossword. Her daughter described her as a kind and thoughtful woman who loved children and loved music, committed to sharing this love with the world.

“I would call her a natural educator,” Clarke said. “I think she was particularly happy working with the kids, teaching them the basics of music. Music was a part of her life, and she wanted to share it.”