Click on Title to Access Story

Ray Kroc
(1902-1984)
Hamburger Entrepreneur

Ray Kroc, Would-Be Ambulance Driver Ray Kroc's best known achievements are nicely summarized at Britannica Online: [He was a] restaurateur and a pioneer of the fast-food industry. He was working as a blender salesman when he discovered a restaurant in San Bernardino, Calif., owned by Maurice and Richard McDonald, who used an assembly-line format to prepare and sell a large volume of hamburgers, French fries, and milk shakes. Beginning in 1955 Kroc opened his first McDonald's drive-in restaurant in Des Plaines, Ill., paying the brothers a percentage of the receipts. He soon began selling franchises for new restaurants, and he instituted a training program for owner-managers that emphasized automation and standardization. At the time of his death there were some 7,500 McDonald's restaurants worldwide; with more than 25,000 restaurants in the early 21st century, McDonald's was the world's largest food-service retailer. He did have his World War I moment, however. Like fellow residents of Oak Park, Illinois, Ernest Hemingway, and Walt Disney, Kroc volunteered for Red Cross Service as an ambulance driver. The adventuresome young man lied about his age joining up at 15. He was still in training stateside, however, when the Armistice came, so he never quite made it "Over There." Lillie Langtry (1853-1929) Beauty, Entertainer Lillie Langtry, from the Isle of Jersey was a late-19th Century celebrity, who became notable at first in London Society for her great beauty and her liaison with Edward VII. The comedy, Lady Windermere's Fan, was written for her by Oscar Wilde. She later demonstrated additional talents, though. Lillie later succeeded as an actress on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as theatre management, winery operations in California, and raising race horses. She married a younger man, Hugo de Bathe, in 1899 and withdrew from the stage for a time to attend to her other interests. Lillie Langtry She later returned to the stage and was touring in the U.S. when war was declared. Lillie, who had taken American citizenship, spent three wartime seasons in America. She returned to Great Britain in the summer, taking part in benefits for wounded. In 1917 she travelled home via Spain and France on a Spanish liner in hopes of avoiding the submarine threat and, after an adventuresome trip, ended up in London. At one point when asked what her husband was doing for the war effort, she famously replied, "My husband is a general's chauffeur somewhere in France." Lillie played at the Coliseum for a while and was on stage there when a bomb exploded near the theatre. Her calm demeanor reassured the audience and she was credited for averting a panic. Soon after, she retired for the time, escaping to Regal Lodge, her country house at Kentford in horse racing country. Lillie spent the last year of the war cultivating vegetables with the help of the village girls to support the war effort. After the Armistice she retired to Monaco and succeeded in "Breaking the Bank at Monte Carlo" and writing a best-selling novel before passing away in 1929.