Virginia Oliver, Maine’s celebrated Lobster Lady, just turned 103 last week. And she renewed her fishing license for the 2023 season, her 95th year on the water.
At a birthday party at the Rockland Historical Society, where she’s a lifetime member, Oliver ate some cake and talked about lobstering. It’s not work, she said. “It’s just what I do.” Someone asked her about her favorite part of the job. “I like to go by everybody,” she said. “I don‘t stop. Wave. Keep going. No lingering around.”
Oliver has been working since she was 8, when she went out on her father’s boat, and she just kept going. After she was married, she stopped for a while to work for a printer, but she got bored. She joined her husband on the water. She worked with him until he died, 16 years ago, and she still kept going.
Now she gets up at 1:15 in the morning, three times a week in Rockland, pulls on her boots and goes to work with her son, Max, who’s 77. Max hauls traps, while his mother measures the lobsters. But there’s no confusion about who’s the boss. After all, the boat, Virginia, is named after her.
A few years ago, when she was in her late 90s, Oliver was discovered by American and foreign media. The story was a natural, and she was featured on the Today Show, CBS News and German TV, among other organizations. She’s also the subject of a new book, Lobster Lady, published by Random House.
Oliver has no plans to stop. When will she quit? “When I die,” she says. Read more at
https://www.penbaypilot.com/article/lobster-lady-celebrates-103rd-birthday-new-book-beginning-another-season-water/174767 and see the video below:
