Maine's 'Lobster Lady' celebrates 103rd birthday with no plans to stop: Love 'being the boss'

Virginia Oliver has already renewed her lobster fishing license for the 2023 season! Virginia, or Ginny as her friends adoringly call her, just celebrated her 103rd birthday on June 6, 2023. Also affectionately known as Maine's "Lobster Lady," she is still lobstering to this day... that's an almost century-long ritual! 

The centenarian celebrated her big day with friends and family while also paying homage to her love for her lobstering. She wore lobster-shaped earrings studded with jewels for the occasion. "Virginia, who still does her own cooking, didn't have to bake this cake, but she did slice it for members of the society and her daughter and three sons," Wayne Gray, who attended the celebration, told NEWS CENTER Maine.

And when it comes to lobstering she doesn't plan on slowing down. Like we said, Virginia has already renewed her lobster fishing license for the 2023 season entering her 95th year hauling traps. She began catching lobsters at just 8 years old with her father and older brother. She still lives near her parents' home on Claredon Street in Rockland and over the years she raised her four children with her late husband, all of whom lobstered too.

In fact, she's become such a legend in the community that she's even been illustrated in a children’s book called The Lobster Lady—Maine’s 102-year-old Legend.   Two Maine residents, writer Barbara Walsh and illustrator Shelby Crouse worked on it together. “I’ve been a journalist for 35-plus years,” Walsh said, “And when I saw 207’s segment on her last July, I kept watching it and I fell in love with her. And I thought, 'This is a children’s book.'” 

When asked what she loves best about catching lobsters, "Being the boss," Virginia told 207's Beth McEvoy in 2021. At the time she was 101 she used to go with her son three times a week to catch the crustaceans. She loves being active and independent. "You just have to keep going otherwise you would be in a wheelchair or something," she shared. If she's not lobstering she is usually "baking beans on Saturday and (my kids) come for supper," shared Virginia who is famous for baking cake, brownies and especially doughnuts.

Virginia assures everyone that she's lived a full life and isn't afraid of death. "Everybody gonna die sometime," the Lobster Lady said. "You not gonna live forever, so why let it bother you?" Virginia added that she doesn't plan on retiring any time soon and that it would have to be when she dies, and not a moment before. She said she loves the freedom that comes with working on the water. “It’s really not work to me,”  she previously had said when she was 101 to Down East magazine. “It’s just what I do. I like to do it. I wouldn’t go if I didn’t want to.” The Rockland resident added, "You just better work hard, not just sit around doing nothing. You know, if you don’t keep moving, then you’re not going to be able to do nothing. And that’s not even living.”