I was wandering around one of the historical society museums in Harrington, Del., when I came across a yellowed clipping from the Delaware State News, dated Jan. 2, 1972. The intriguing headline caught my eye. So did the infectious smile of an old woman in a photo. Here is the headline:
Lettie Callaway, One Hard Worker
From first word to last, the story by reporter Cheryl Hastings put a big smile on my face. Think of it as a random, everywoman-style tribute to the hard-working ethos of our Delmarva Peninsula. Here’s the story:
An honest day’s work never hurt anyone, and Lettie Callaway’s life certainly proves the adage.
The 101-pound grandmother has been working on a farm ever since she can remember. And today she’s just as spry as some 20-year-olds.
“I’ve been working ever since I was old enough to pick up a 10-quart bucket,” she laughs, “and that’s been many a year ago I’ll be 82 if I live to see the last day of March.
“Pop used to call me ‘Little Gal’ when I was living at home. Why I’d hoe, feed animals, cultivate, and roll logs right along with my brothers.”
Mrs. Callaway is one of 12 children, “and I was the runt of the bunch,” she laughs. Today she is the only one still living.
“Pop would keep me home on fittin’ days [when the weather was decent], so I only attended school on the days when it was raining or snowing. So I never did finish second grade, just never went back.”
After she and her husband were married in 1911, she worked … alongside of him.
“We worked together as long as he lived,” she says. Henry Callaway died three years ago, [in 1969].
Working around the kitchen as we talked, she cautioned, “Speak up I don’t hear so well,” and went on to explain. “When I was 11, I got knocked down by the lightning while I was letting the cows in the barn. Never have heard good since, but I don’t want no hearing aid. Tried one and all I could hear was a buzz. Hear better without it than with it.”
The mother of three sons—Joe Henry and Paul—she says, “My girls never got here.”
She helped her husband run their farm and even lay bricks. “I used to carry the bricks to him in my apron. I never turned down a job of work in my life that I could do.” That included doing others washing and ironing, along with her farm chores and housekeeping.
“They say you can get used to anything but hanging, and I have.”
“Why I still tend my own garden, do my housework, and sell furniture for my son Paul in her back barn.” In her spare time she likes to quilt and cook.
She and her dog, Miss Tiny, live in the grey farmhouse near Harrington alone. Other than going to her children’s homes she seldom strays further than the mailbox at the end of the lane. Having lived in the same house for 20 years she can’t remember all the other places she and her husband lived.
“Why, I’d have to sit down and write them down and figure it out that way,” she explains.
Asked what the most important thing that has happened to her, she shoots back, “Why that’s a hundred-dollar-bill question to ask me. I just can’t answer it.”
Looking forward to the summer months, Mrs. Callaway plans to plant a garden. “People keep saying to me, ‘Lettie, you aren’t going to fool with the garden again this year, [are you]? But I tell them, ’deed I am, and in my bare feet, too.
“Yes, siree, I don’t mind workin’!”
Lettie kept working away for another decade. She passed away in 1982, at the age of 91, survived by two sons, nine grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren. She is buried at Cokesbury Cemetery, near Georgetown.
–posted by Jim Duffy in April 2025 for Secrets of the Eastern Shore/Whimbrel Creations LLC. Thank you so much for spending a little time on this site!
