Philanthropist wife of McDonald's founder dies

SAN DIEGO — Joan Kroc, the railroad worker's daughter who married a fast-food magnate, owned the San Diego Padres baseball team and donated hundreds of millions of dollars to philanthropic causes, died yesterday at her home in suburban Rancho Santa Fe. She was 75.

Mrs. Kroc suffered from glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer. In characteristic form, she had kept her illness a secret lest her friends find it upsetting.

She was the largest single stockholder of McDonald's, with a fortune estimated at $1.7 billion. She was the widow of McDonald's founder Ray Kroc.

"She was a woman of generous spirit and a loving heart," said former San Diego Mayor Maureen O'Connor, one of Kroc's closest friends. "When she walked into a room she radiated joy."

Her financial largesse encompassed education, health care, AIDS and cancer research, youth programs, the arts, aid for residents of the flood-ravaged Midwest, famine relief in Africa, the San Diego Zoo and, in recent years, the pursuit of peace and nuclear nonproliferation.

The extent of her philanthropy may never be fully known because of her passion for anonymity.

A Catholic, she endowed programs at the University of San Diego and the University of Notre Dame to study nonviolence and ways to avoid war.

"She was very concerned about finding alternatives to conflict and violence," said Scott Appleby, director of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. "She was worried that otherwise our future would be bleak."

Born in St. Paul, Minn., Mrs. Kroc was the daughter of a railroad telegrapher. She learned to love music from her mother, who played the violin. She taught music and married a McDonald's franchise holder. The couple had a daughter, Linda.

In 1957, while playing piano in a supper club, she caught the eye of Ray Kroc, the volatile, charismatic entrepreneur who had revolutionized the fast-food industry with his assembly-line techniques and low prices. Twelve years later, after he had divorced twice and she once, they married and moved from Chicago to San Diego.

Admittedly, she was not a baseball fan in her younger years. When Ray Kroc told her he planned to buy the San Diego Padres, she replied, "What's that, a monastery?" After his death in 1984, she assumed control of the team to keep it from being moved to Washington, D.C. In 1990, she sold the team to TV producer Tom Werner and 14 partners.

"She enjoyed having the freedom that money gives you: to have fun and to do good," said Msgr. Joe Carroll, president of St. Vincent de Paul Village in San Diego, a program for the homeless and poor. Mrs. Kroc was a major benefactor.

One of her largest and most innovative donations was $87 million in 1998 to build and operate a 12-acre Salvation Army youth center in San Diego, with three swimming pools, a large gymnasium, performing arts center, skateboard park, a 55,000-square-foot playing field and more.

"She worried that there were children and families who didn't have an opportunity to discover their talents because of a lack of facilities," said Salvation Army Maj. Cindy Foley. "She embodied the word generosity."

Mrs. Kroc is survived by her daughter, Linda Kliber of Rancho Santa Fe; four granddaughters and four great-grandchildren.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.