The two women, who are each married, split duties. Taylor, 12 years younger than Via, goes out on the Rappahannock River, dropping and pulling the more than 100 peeler pots the sisters own. (Peeler pots are smaller than conventional crab pots and typically used in seven to nine feet of water, with no bait.) She uses a modified Thunderbird for transport, a sports vessel turned heavy crabbing boat. A recent surgery has slowed Taylor a bit, but she’ll still work the pots almost daily when the weather is nice. “I was on the water today from 6:30 a.m. to 11:00. It was beautiful.”
She is sometimes assisted by one of Catherine Via’s sons. There are four, three of whom are watermen themselves. “They go out almost every day,” says Taylor, and keep a close eye on conditions. “They’ll say, ‘Hold on, don’t put the pots out yet—it’s not time.’ And then, ‘OK, you’d better go ahead and put them out.’” Given the nature of the work, it’s no surprise to hear Taylor say that she sleeps well at night. She lives in the house in which she was born and calls Urbanna “the most beautiful place—a wonderful town.”
Via, meantime, spends her afternoons during the May-to-September soft-shell season in and around the crab house. She comes down to the shop at 2:30 every afternoon to “fish up” the crabs—pull the soft shells out of their floats, pack them up in coolers and wait on customers. The peelers must be fished up every four hours; that’s as long as one of the creatures can stay in the water after it sheds. Any longer and the skin begins to get leathery and hard again. “Your buyer doesn’t want old paper shells—it means it’s going back to a hard crab again,” says Via. After her 2:30 duties are completed, she goes home, then returns at 6:00 for more fishing up. Taylor takes the 9:00 p.m. shift. “We take turns, back and forth, and give each other a break,” explains Via, “except during the day, when we’re both down here.”
What’s life like in winter? “Boring,” says Via, adding, “It’s just housework and laundry. I’d rather be down here, even though the work is getting harder and harder.”
Through it all, neither is thinking of retirement. Perhaps it’s because the women have too much personal history in the business. “We helped our Dad ever since we were little girls, and it got in our blood,” says Taylor. And now? “This is our way of keeping his legacy going. I think he’d be proud that we’re still doing it.” And with that, she hurries off to tend to her pots.
(Originally published in the August 2008 issue.)
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