Roberta Christine Sentman

Roberta Christine Hogan (AKA - Beyer) Sentman, a resident of Wilson, Oklahoma who was born in Oklahoma City on December 21, 1937, passed quietly in her sleep at home on April 20 2022, at the age of 84 years old after a battle with cancer.

She is survived by a son, John R. (Beth) Sentman of St. Joseph MI, and 4 daughters: Jacquelyn (Bobby) Gamble, of Portsmouth, VA; Katheryn Sentman of Mechanicsville VA, Jeanette (Roy) Winn of Woodbine, GA and Elizabeth (Greg) Balentine of Crofton, KY. She is also survived by 31 grandchildren and, at present count, 40 great-grandchildren.

She is pre-deceased by her husband, John F. Sentman, Jr. of Philadelphia, PA, who is interred in Arlington National Cemetery, in honor of his military service in the US Navy. She is also predeceased by her mother, Christine (Hogan) Beyer, a long-time resident of Wilson; her father, Robert J. Hogan, a resident of Harrah, Oklahoma prior to his death. Also her brother, Harold J. Hogan (AKA –Beyer), a long-time resident of Wilson, in July 2017.

Roberta met her husband, John while he was on leave, when she was attending a Future Homemakers Association convention. She and John began a long-distance courtship before getting married in February 1955. Their eldest, John R., was born later that year in Ardmore, OK. As a mother and homemaker, Roberta embraced her role as a military wife, leaving Oklahoma to travel with her husband’s career to Alameda, CA where daughter Jacquelyn was born, then Bremerton, WA, where daughter Katheryn was born. They then transferred to Mayport Naval Air Station, FL, followed by a transfer to Patuxent River, MD. After Maryland they received orders to Norfolk Naval Air Station in Norfolk, VA and where Jeanette was born. They purchased their first home in Portsmouth, VA. After that the family had a brief stay at Ft. Bliss, TX for the Sargeant Major Academy. They then traveled back to the family home in Portsmouth, VA and NAS Norfolk and it was here that their family was completed with the birth of Elizabeth.

In addition to “manning the home front” during her husband’s multiple military deployments, Roberta worked in direct home sales as a representative of Fuller Brush and Avon while her children were young. She worked later as a school bus driver and the bookkeeper for Portsmouth Catholic School, while the four oldest children attended school there. The family was active in Scouting and she was a Boy Scouts of America Den Mother for Troop 205 in Portsmouth, VA. Always interested in politics and civic affairs Roberta was a member of the Virginia Republican Party and worked with US Census Bureau as a census taker.

Baptized and raised in the Southern Baptist faith, Roberta became a member of the Episcopal Church after her marriage to John and later became a member of the Anglican Church, when the Episcopal Church split. Just prior to her death she was baptized and received last rites from a Catholic priest.

A viewing will be held on June 2, 2022 at 6 pm and a service will be held for Roberta and a short memorial for her brother, Harold, at Alexander Gray Funeral Home in Wilson, Oklahoma on June 3, 2022 at 10 am. Harold, who was cremated following his death in 2017, will be interred in Memory Lane Cemetery in Harrah, Oklahoma after the service; Roberta is to be interred with her husband in Arlington National Cemetery at a future date.