American philanthropist and prominent arts advocate, once the richest American and the eleventh-richest woman in the world. She was the wife of Walmart and Sam’s Club founder Sam Walton.
She was dedicated to her community in Bentonville, Arkansas where she instituted a committee for a national museum of arts. After 31 years of activity, the Arkansas Committee on the National Museum for Women in the Arts is the longest standing committee in the state.
She married Sam Walton on Valentine’s Day, 14 February 1943, in Claremont. In September 1945, Sam and Helen Walton opened a Ben Franklin “five and dime”, their first retail store, in Newport, Arkansas. In 1962, they opened the first Wal-Mart.
When Sam Walton died in 1992, he left his ownership in Wal-Mart to Helen and their four children. In 2002, as Helen Watson was the president of the Walton Family Foundation, a $300 million donation was made to the University of Arkansas, the biggest donation ever made to a public university in the United States.
In the last eight years of her life, Helen Walton suffered from dementia but gained peace painting watercolors. She died of heart failure on 19 April 2007 at age 87 in Bentonville, Arkansas. At the time of her death, she had an estimated net worth of $16.4 billion and owned 8.1% of Wal-Mart.
Link to Wikipedia biography