After working long days as a housekeeper at the Flamingo Hilton, Ruby Duncan would return to her West Las Vegas home with a lone hamburger, cut it into a half-dozen equal pieces, and feed it to her six children.
That’s what passed for dinner in the Duncan household on many a night. And that was before they were really poor.
After a string of housekeeping jobs, Duncan found herself working as a short-order cook at the Sahara, starting her shift at 2 p.m. each day. By 5 p.m., she was expected to have made 1,500 salads. One day, she slipped on a puddle of grease in the kitchen and suffered an injury that rendered her unable to do heavy labor.
