Joan Kroc

Joan Beverly Kroc (née Mansfield; August 27, 1928 – October 12, 2003) was the third wife of McDonald's CEO Ray Kroc and a philanthropist.

Early life

Joan was born on August 27, 1928, in West St. Paul, Minnesota. Her father, Charles Smart Mansfield, was a store keeper, later a railroad telegraph operator and salesman. Her mother, Gladys Bonnebelle Mansfield was born April 5, 1906 in Luck, Wisconsin to Herman Conrad Peterson and his wife Emma Bonnebelle. Joan's mother was an accomplished violinist. She studied music at the MacPhail School of Music in Minneapolis and started teaching at age 15.

Marriage and family

In 1945, she married Rawland F. Smith, a Navy veteran, who, eventually, became a McDonalds franchisee. The couple's only child, a daughter named Linda, was born the following year.

Joan met McDonald's Corp. founder Ray Kroc while playing piano at a corporate party at a bar in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1957. Kroc said in his autobiography that he "was stunned by her blond beauty". They carried on a secret relationship until they both divorced their spouses and married in 1969. Following Kroc's death in 1984, she inherited his fortune.