Early Life and Career
Kroc was born to parents of Czech origin in Oak Park, near Chicago, on October 5, 1902. His father originated from the village Břasy near Plzeň, Bohemia (now the Czech Republic). He grew up and spent most of his life in Oak Park, Illinois. During the First World War he lied about his age and became a Red Cross ambulance driver at 15. During the war, Kroc served in the same regiment as Walt Disney. Between the end of the war and the early 1950s he tried his hand at a number of trades including paper cup salesman, pianist, jazz musician, band member and radio DJ at Oak Park radio station WGES. At one time, Ray worked for room and board at one of Ray Dambaugh's restaurants in the midwest to learn the restaurant business. He eventually became a multi-mixer milkshake machine salesman, traveling across the country.
Read more about this topic: Ray Kroc
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“But she is early up and out,
To trim the year or strip its bones;”
—Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)
“the sheets and towels of a life we were going to share,
The milk-stiff bibs, the shroud, each rag to be ever
Trampled or soiled, bled on or groped for blindly,
Came swooning out of an enormous willow hamper
Onto moon-marbly boards.”
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“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)