Timothy Michael Sherlock of Wellfleet died peacefully at home with his three sisters by his side on June 15, 2024. He had faced esophageal cancer with great courage. He was 51.

The youngest of four, Timmy was born on June 21, 1972 in Naperville, Ill. to Judith M. Sherlock and the late Timothy K. Sherlock; he grew up in Bolingbrook, Ill. “Timmy was a free spirit,” his sister Amy Maciejewski said. “He should have been growing up in the ’60s. He was very artistic. He could draw anything.”

Timmy’s maternal grandparents, Michael and Marie Politika, owned two cottages on Chequessett Neck Road in Wellfleet, where the family had spent summer vacations since the late 1960s. One day in Provincetown in the summer of 1973, Timmy’s aunt “Big Ame” offered to buy souvenirs for him and his three sisters. He chose a white sea captain’s hat, which he proudly wore while still in diapers, earning himself the nickname “Captain Tim-a-Noots.”

When Timmy was 13, the family moved to Wellfleet, and the next year, he walked into the Lighthouse on Main Street and asked for a job; he was hired as a dishwasher. It turned out to be a way to meet everyone in town. Working there, “he was embraced as a true Wellfleetian,” Amy said. He proved to be both honest and hardworking.

According to his sisters, Timmy raised himself, forming his own community connections. He was particularly close with the Potter-Lindsays, whom he considered his second family. Kai Potter said that Timmy “so fully inhabited his own wonderfully weird self that he made others feel immediately at ease in their own messy, human selves. He invited you to be fully yourself.”

Timmy attended Provincetown High School and Cape Cod Tech but did not finish, furthering his education in the school of life. He earned his General Education Diploma in 1992, two years after he would have graduated. “Timmy was self-taught,” Amy said, “and he was very smart; he could always figure it out, no matter what.”

He enjoyed a good conversation, going to the theater, and listening to NPR. He was a voracious reader who loved history, especially when it was about politics or the environment, and read all he could about Cape Cod. He admired Abraham Lincoln.

“He was a big Earth lover,” Amy said. He devoured information about the ocean and the environmental challenges the Cape faces.

A skilled craftsman, Timmy was a perfectionist with no patience for shoddy work. He worked as a fisherman, landscaper, roofer, and carpenter, most recently with Thor Construction.

Timmy “loved to stir and whip up that vital life energy within others and turn it into laughter,” Kai Potter said. “He laughed from the very center of his being. If you ask us what the sound of Timmy’s life is, we will tell you it is the sound of laughter.”

His sisters said he “honestly believed if you could be anything in this world, be kind.” And Timmy was — in ways small and large. When his great-nephew Spencer Cavanaugh lost his father, Timmy stepped into the void, taking six-year-old Spencer under his wing.

Even in the last days of fighting his illness, he made it a point to learn every nurse’s name and to thank each one for their care.

Timmy is survived by his mother, Judith Sherlock of Chicago; his sisters, Angela Rowell of Wellfleet, Anita Jackson and husband Daren of Jacksonville, Fla.; and Amy Maciejewski and husband William of Ottawa, Ill.; his nieces and nephews, Amanda Andrews and husband Morris Andrews of Mashpee, Ashley Rowell of Wellfleet, Michael and wife Grayce Rowell of Quincy, Daniel and wife Audrey Rowell of Yarmouth, Amy McHaney of Jacksonville, Fla., and Timothy, Daniel, and Alex Zielinski of Bolingbrook, Ill.; his great-nephews Spencer Cavanaugh of Wellfleet and Kace Andrews of Mashpee and great-niece Aquinna Andrews of Mashpee; and numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins from Virginia, Washington, Florida, and New York.

Timmy is also survived by his second family: Sharyn Lindsay; Caleb, Kai, and Max Potter; Shannon Bertrand and Liam Bertrand; and Stu Oberist.

He was preceded in death by his maternal grandparents Michael and Marie Politika, his paternal grandparents Thomas and Mary Sherlock, his uncle Michael Politika, his brother-in-law Robert Rowell, and his niece Ashley Rowell’s husband, Jonah Cavanaugh.

A celebration of Timmy’s life was held at Newcomb Hollow Beach on June 21. Another will be held next summer for out-of-state family and friends on June 21, 2025. All are welcome.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests planting a memorial tree in Timmy’s memory.