Meet 101-year-old lobster lady of US who wishes to work till her last day on Earth

Virginia Oliver is the oldest lady to be selling lobsters in the US. The lady, who is 101, doesn’t let her age come in her way to follow her passion and she does she likes to do. Fishing lobsters out of the sea since the age of seven, she has not grown tired of her job and wishes to follow doing so until her death.

World’s oldest Lobster Woman doesn't want to stop working, even at 101

Virginia is the oldest licensed lobster lady in Maine. The local historians describe her as perhaps the oldest active one in the world. She has her routine set, and moves into the waters of the city of Rockland, for three days per week. She is companied by her 78-year-old son Max, who helps her crew the boat. The boat that she steers has been named after her ‘Virginia’ by her late husband. Renowned for her passion, she is recognised as ‘Lobster lady’ in the town and her friends call her Ginny.

The US lobster lady said she will continue to do this till her last breath. She added, "Many times people have discouraged me and said that it's been a long time for me to work here; they often ask why do I do it. I simply tell them that I do it because I want to, and that I am now old enough to decide for myself."

In her day-to-day tasks, she gets up at 3:30 am and heads towards her boat as the clock hits 5 in the morning. The mother-son duo moves to the boat either in her pickup truck or Max’s 1956 Chevy. They then drive down to a private cove and take their small dingy out to the lobster boat. Oliver and Max have a few hundred net- traps laid in the water bed, which they pull through to collect lobsters.

Max hauls in the traps with a winch, while Oliver measures the lobsters and place the lobsters in different holds.
She then checks a lobster is of legal size, and wraps the bands over the lobster’s claws and grabs a rubber band and a clamp using her left hand. They then collect them and sell them at the Spruce Head Lobster Pound Co-Op, which helps the mother-son team get a better price at the wholesale level.

Image: Pixabay