Robinson reportedly worked for the company until her death in 1951, although the work was sporadic and for mere weeks in a year. Nevertheless, this was not enough to escape the hard life into which she was born. Her $1,200 total payment in 1939 () was almost the entirety of the household's annual income. The official Aunt Jemima history timeline once stated she was "able to make enough money to provide for her children and buy a 22-room house where she rents rooms to boarders." (See also the same claim for Anna Short Harrington.) According to the 1940 census, she rented an apartment in a four-flat in Washington Park with her daughter, son-in-law, and two grandchildren.