Contact The Editor
Articles By This Author
• It was 1928 when Virginia Oliver, age 8, started trapping lobsters, and she hasn't stopped working the harvest yet.
Oliver, now 101 years old, is a sternman on her 78-year-old son's boat, which bears her name.
In that role, she measures and bands lobsters, but Oliver, of Rockland, Maine, also loads traps with small fish to attract lobsters and gets up before dawn to head out to sea.
The Associated Press reported that a couple of years ago, a crab nipped her finger and she had to have seven stitches.
When the doctor asked Oliver why she was still lobstering, she snapped back, "Well, that's 'cause I want to do it." Oliver has no plans to retire. "I like being along the water. And so I'm going to keep on doing it just as long as I can." [Associated Press, 9/16/2021]