I knew a stay at home mom who would grade papers for profs at the community college I attended. She graded them for quite a few profs.
Then there is a few folks at work who also work out of their homes as well. One bakes dog cookies and sells them at shows, another makes beaded jewlery to sell at shows as well. Another guy is a free lance artist drawing anything and everything.
At the job I had with commercial trucks, many contractors had family help. It was fairly common to have a wife or daughter to answer the phone while the sons, brothers, etc helped with work. Rather a contractor for building, hauling, tree trimming, stringing cable, splicing cable, etc.
I believe its possible to find a work from home job, its just the matter of being in the right place and right time. Many mom and pop business want a steady, reliable, dependable employee and are very flexable.
No, I have not have any luck myself in getting into a job like that. I was going to be a tech on call and issued a cell phone from a local company that offers unlimited service for a flat fee to answer question on disablity software. THat fizzed out and the guy retired.