It’s been 60 years since Bernadette Frazier started working for the Seaboard Hospitality company as a short-order cook at the Avenue Restaurant in Rehoboth Beach. She even remembers the date she started – Aug. 15, 1966. It was the day her son turned 1 month old.

She said she was 16 years old and scared as hell. She needed a job, and her mom, who lived in Rehoboth, could watch her son while she worked, she said.

Frazier worked at the restaurant for 20 years. She said she met a lot of people and ended up working with a lot of people she went to school with. She worked at the restaurant long enough that even her son worked there at one point.

“I could cook pretty good too," said Frazier, smiling. "I basically grew up in the restaurant."

Frazier is the fourth oldest of 13 siblings that includes six brothers and seven sisters. She was born in Lewes, raised in West Rehoboth and went to Rehoboth High School. She has three sons, three grandsons, two granddaughters, seven great-grandkids and “lots of nieces and nephews.”

Seaboard Hospitality has a long history in Rehoboth Beach. Frazier knew Alvin Simpler, who operated the restaurant with wife Helen in the 1950s and 1960s, and worked many years with his son Kenny Simpler, who worked in the restaurant’s kitchen. She said she hadn’t given much thought about staying with the company for all these years. It kind of just crept up on her. The Simplers treated her well, so she stayed.

“I love them all,” said Frazier of the Simpler family. “Kenny would be happy that I’m working here.”

In the mid-1980s, following a change in management at the restaurant, Frazier moved to the company’s Beach View Hotel, located on the ocean block between Wilmington and Delaware avenues. For a number of years, she’d work in the hotel housekeeping department during the summer months and then work at the Seahorse Restaurant, a well-known dining spot in the 1970s and 1980s, during the winter.

A short time later, she transitioned exclusively to the laundry department at the Beach View, and she’s been keeping the linens cleaned for the company ever since.

“I can count the number of days that I missed work,” said Frazier.

Of course there have been days when the routine of folding laundry was monotonous and, especially in the middle of summer, tiring, but Frazier said she just kept working through it.

“Like my sister has said to me over the years – just turn on the news and you’ll never complain again,” said Frazier. “All in all, any day you’re able to get up and go to work is a good day.”

Frazier, now 76, doesn’t work weekends or during the winter months. She’s not sure how long she’ll work this year. Probably through October, but maybe Thanksgiving, she said.

This summer, Frazier moved to another Seaboard Hospitality property – the Atlantic View Hotel, located at the ocean end of Clayton Street in Dewey Beach.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be working here, but I do know this is my last stop,” said Frazier, smiling. “I like it here. Everyone is respectful.”

The laundry room at the Atlantic View isn’t too big, but Frazier said it’s plenty big enough for her to get her work done. There are a commercial washer and dryer, a few commercial-sized laundry baskets, a folding table, shelving to stack clean laundry and cleaning supplies.

“They even installed a television down here for me,” said Frazier, adding that the dirty sheets and towels are brought down to the laundry room for her.

For many years, she would have to go get them herself.

At one point, while Frazier was still at the Beach View in Rehoboth, she was actually doing the laundry of the Atlantic View too because the company would bring the sheets and towels from Dewey to Rehoboth. That was a lot of laundry, but Frazier said, “I got through it.”

There’s a routine to Frazier’s days in the laundry room. She arrives most days by 8 a.m., but closer to 9 a.m. if there aren’t too many checkouts. She leaves a load of laundry from the previous day for herself to do as soon as she gets in, so the first thing she’ll do is start a load of laundry.

“Once that washer starts, it’s on all day,” said Frazier.

While waiting for that first load to get washed, she’ll get a cup of coffee and enjoy some “friendly conversation” with her coworkers, most of whom are young enough to be her kids or grandkids. To pass the time, with the television on in the background, Frazier said she’ll talk and sing to herself.

Depending on how many checkouts there are, she’ll do seven to eight loads of laundry in a day. Pieces of laundry – pillowcases, fitted sheets, washcloths, hand towels, regular towels, bath mats – have a specific way of being folded and stacked. She washes towels separate from sheets, and folds dried items as soon as possible after they’re dry. 

“I want it done right. I don’t want wrinkles,” said Frazier. “I like to put them in exactly the same spot every time. That way we don’t get them all mixed up.”

When folding, Frazier separates items into specific piles. She doesn’t even bother to see what it is. She can tell by the weight and texture. She’s had to modify her folding technique slightly at the new hotel, because the space to fold is shaped differently. Every fold garners a light pat of her hands before moving onto the next fold.

“I want them clean and folded up the way they’re supposed to be,” she said.

In many ways, she is her own boss, said Frazier.

“They let me come in and do my job,” she said. “As long as I’m getting the laundry done, they don’t bother me.”

The washer and dryer technology has changed over years, said Frazier. She had to be shown how to operate the new machines, but she’s gotten the hang of it, she said.

“Now, the machines talk back to you,” she said.

Looking back on 60 years with the same company, Frazier said it started out as a way to make sure her children were taken care of. She said she recognizes there was help from family members, but she didn’t want to be stuck asking anybody else for anything. 

Her kids never went hungry and they all graduated, she said.

“They are good kids. At the end of the day, what else matters?” said Frazier.