Current:Home > BackChecking back in with Maine's oldest lobsterwoman as she embarks on her 95th season-LoTradeCoin
Checking back in with Maine's oldest lobsterwoman as she embarks on her 95th season
View Date:2024-12-23 23:50:34
Max Oliver is an old salt, but compared to his 103-year-old crewmate, Max is but a child - her child.
Max sails with his mother, Virginia Oliver, who CBS News reported on a few years ago. Then, she was 101 years old and Maine's oldest lobster fisherman. Now, she's setting out for her 95th season.
Three days a week, from May through November, Max and Virginia can be found on Maine's Penobscot Bay, tackling one of the most hazardous jobs in the country.
Despite the danger, Virginia doesn't let her age slow her down. Once, she was cut so badly she needed seven stitches.
"The doctor said to me 'What are you out there lobstering for?' And I said, 'Because I want to,'" Virginia told CBS News in 2021.
Virginia began working on lobster boats at the age of seven, when she went out with her father. Back then, it was a male-dominated field, with not another girl or woman in sight. But now, more than nine decades later, she's the master of the sea.
Together, she and Max work together on the boat. He hauls in the lobsters, she measures them, and then tames the claws of the keepers.
"She don't give up," Max said in 2021.
When asked what he would do if his mother expressed plans to retire, Max said his first thought would be disbelief.
Despite gaining some celebrity — and even a children's book telling her story — Virginia remains the same humble lobsterwoman — with the same plan for retirement.
She'll stop her work "when I die," she said in 2021. Two years later, that answer is exactly the same.
To contact On the Road, or to send us a story idea, email us: [email protected].
- In:
- Maine
Steve Hartman has been a CBS News correspondent since 1998, having served as a part-time correspondent for the previous two years.
veryGood! (6)
Related
- Kevin Costner says he hasn't watched John Dutton's fate on 'Yellowstone': 'Swear to God'
- Why the VA in Atlanta is throwing 'drive-through' baby showers for pregnant veterans
- In House Bill, Clean Energy on the GOP Chopping Block 13 Times
- North Dakota's governor has signed a law banning nearly all abortions
- Pie, meet donuts: Krispy Kreme releases Thanksgiving pie flavor ahead of holidays
- Timeline: The Justice Department's prosecution of the Trump documents case
- How 90 Big Companies Helped Fuel Climate Change: Study Breaks It Down
- The improbable fame of a hijab-wearing teen rapper from a poor neighborhood in Mumbai
- Summer I Turned Pretty's Gavin Casalegno Marries Girlfriend Cheyanne Casalegno
- Australia Cuts Outlook for Great Barrier Reef to ‘Very Poor’ for First Time, Citing Climate Change
Ranking
- NASCAR Cup Series Championship race 2024: Start time, TV, live stream, odds, lineup
- The Taliban again bans Afghan women aid workers. Here's how the U.N. responded
- Sun's out, ticks out. Lyme disease-carrying bloodsucker season is getting longer
- Would you like to live beyond 100? No, some Japanese say
- Insurance magnate pleads guilty as government describes $2B scheme
- A Smart Grid Primer: Complex and Costly, but Vital to a Warming World
- FAMU clears football activities to resume after unauthorized rap video in locker room
- Eminem's Daughter Hailie Jade Announces Fashionable Career Venture
Recommendation
-
Why Game of Thrones' Maisie Williams May Be Rejoining the George R.R. Martin Universe
-
How do you get equal health care for all? A huge new database holds clues
-
COVID during pregnancy may alter brain development in boys
-
U.S. Coast Guard search for American Ryan Proulx suspended after he went missing near Bahamas shipwreck
-
Can't afford a home? Why becoming a landlord might be the best way to 'house hack.'
-
With Odds Stacked, Tiny Solar Manufacturer Looks to Create ‘American Success Story’
-
Climate Change Is Shifting Europe’s Flood Patterns, and These Regions Are Feeling the Consequences
-
Harvard Study Finds Exxon Misled Public about Climate Change