Hattie Canty was born and raised in St. Stephens, Alabama. She moved to California as a young woman to seek employment, and married and started a family. Canty's family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in the late 1960s and she found work as a maid for the Thunderbird Hotel and later the Maxim Hotel and Casino. Canty became a Culinary Union Local 226 member. Over the years, she became involved in securing better salaries for women and increasing the number of African Americans in high-paying positions in the casino industry.
Dorothy Frassmann was born October 29, 1931 in Brooklyn, New York. Right before her parents divorced while she was five, Frassmann moved to Canada to live with her great aunt. She moved back to the United States when she was ten years old because World War II started. She met her husband, Lewis, when she was 15 and he was 20 or 21; they married only a month after meeting each other in Texas. After a series of turmoil between Frassmann and Lewis, they got divorced less than a year later. She was left to support herself in Hubbard, Texas at the age of 15.
Stella Champo was born in Moche, Italy on September 16, 1910. In 1912, the Champo family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada. The family first lived in downtown Las Vegas, before moving to a small ranch south of the city in 1917. Stella Champo received her grammar school education in Las Vegas, Nevada and matriculated to Las Vegas High School in 1927.
Felicia Florine Campbell is an English professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). As of 2018, she is the longest serving faculty member at UNLV.
Shirley Edmond and Althia Taylor grew up on Jackson Avenue where their parents owned Johnson's Malt Shop. Both women worked in the postal service until their retirements; Shirley worked for 36 years and Althia for 32 years. Shirley went into management but Althia loved mail delivery even after 14 dog bites. Mackie Edmond worked for the Stardust and interacted with MOB figures like Frank Rosenthal. He explains why people thought that era was better than corporate ownership.
Frank Lawrence was a film editor who worked on silent and early sound films between 1917 and 1936. Born on June 15, 1883, Lawrence worked for film companies including Vitagraph Studios and Universal City Studios. On 1918, he married Viola Lawrence, a fellow editor considered to be the first female film editor in Hollywood. During his career, Lawrence performed editing on films including Hell's Angels (1930). He died on July 28, 1960.
Born as one of four children in Manila, Philippines, Minddie and her siblings were raised by their paternal grandmother and her sisters (the Three Lolas) in the Philippines when her parents took jobs in New Jersey. After the children joined their parents, the family moved to California, where Minddie suffered abuse and subsequently lived in several foster homes and a girls' home, Olive Crest. It was through Olive Crest that Minddie met her mentors, Bruce Layne, Roy Woofter, and Thalia Dondero and came to Las Vegas in 1995, where she worked with the airlines.