The West St. Paul woman who became a McDonald's billionaire

Joan Mansfield was a West St. Paul girl. The blonde beauty, born in the city in 1928, was the daughter of a railroad worker and a violin teacher. She dreamed of being an ice skater, or maybe a veterinarian.

In her 20s, she had a job playing the organ at the Criterion Restaurant on University Avenue.

And by 55, she was the largest individual shareholder of McDonald's, in possession of more money than you could spend in a hundred lifetimes. She made donations so large, they set records, giving away $2 billion to the Salvation Army alone.

It all started in St. Paul.

It was in 1957, in the Criterion dining room, when Joan first met Ray Kroc, the man who made McDonald's an American icon. At the time, he was a traveling salesman, trying to sell franchises of the fledgling burger stand. Ray was also a piano player, and from the minute he saw Joan, he was smitten. There was a 26-year age difference, and both were married at the time, but Ray was relentless.

Their relationship, and Joan's legendary philanthropy, are at the center of a new book by Lisa Napoli — "Ray & Joan: The Man Who Made the McDonald's Fortune and the Woman Who Gave It All Away."

Napoli joined MPR News guest host Marianne Combs to explain the tumultuous history behind the success of McDonald's and Joan's philanthropic goals.

It may have been love at first sight on Ray's part, but their relationship took a long time to come together. Joan's first husband, Rawland Smith, was actually in charge of running McDonald's ninety-third store, in St. Louis Park, Minn. Rawland and Joan then moved to Rapid City to open South Dakota's first McDonald's. In that time, Ray had gotten divorced and re-married — "he couldn't stand to be a bachelor," Napoli said.

When Joan finally accepted Ray's proposal — six years after she rejected his first one, and twelve years after they met — Ray sent his lawyer ask his then-wife for a divorce. Ray and Joan married in 1969.

She was a bleeding heart, Napoli said, and he was a ferocious drinker. Their relationship was volatile and charged. At one point, Joan tried to file for divorce.

Instead, Napoli said, "she stayed and she started an alcoholism education charity." And she didn't just write checks: She helped produce addiction treatment videos that were ahead of their time.

She saw media "as a way to describe to people what addiction was — giving it a name and showing people that they could help. She convened addiction specialists in the '70s, at a time when this was not something commonly spoken about."

She worked with filmmakers to produce films about addiction that aired on national television.

"Instead of looking at just how to solve her own problem, she looked at how to turn her pain into something that was useful for the world at large," Napoli said.

Her philanthropy became more political after Ray's death in 1984. She became the first individual to give a million dollars to the Democratic party, and she was active in anti-nuclear campaigns.

"She was very interested in causes that Ray probably would not have been so keen on," Napoli said. "She kept her politics at bay while her husband was alive, because she felt it would be disrespectful."

Joan died in 2003 at 75, having donated billions of dollars to causes from AIDS treatment to alcohol addiction to public radio.

Though she had a complicated relationship with the company that made her a billionaire — she called McDonald's a chauvinistic corporation — the restaurant chain issued a press release after her death: "The world has lost a true humanitarian, and McDonald's has lost a true friend."

For more about Joan Kroc, her philanthropy and the rise of McDonald's, use the audio player above to listen to the full interview with Lisa Napoli.