“And, boy, did I cry, it hurt,” she told the publication.
Thomas Morse admitted that as a child she felt burdened by the responsibility of being the face of the brand.
“There were times I didn’t want people to know because I didn’t want them to have assumptions,” she said.
“I guess my assumption was that they wouldn’t think I was cool or hip or whatever at the time.”
She said her dad recognised the pressure she had been under and expressed remorse.
“Probably 10 years before my dad passed, we talked about my name and namesake, and he just goes, ‘I’m really sorry I did that to you,’ which was really ... to hear your father say, ‘Probably should just named it Dave’s and that’d been a lot easier,’ was a lot,” she said.
“It was just nice to hear that he felt for me a little bit,” she added.
Dave Thomas died in 2002 aged 69.
Thomas Morse told People she did not bear any resentment towards her father, acknowledging he could never have predicted the global success of the brand.
“Today, I look at the sign and I just see my dad,” she said.
“I just think of my dad a lot because he’s there in spirit.”
Thomas Morse and her siblings now own several Wendy’s franchises.
“It’s a public company, of course, but I’m honoured that I represent the brand and I try to represent it well.”
Wendy’s opened its first New Zealand restaurant in Te Atatū in West Auckland, in December 1988.
Today, the chain has 21 locations from Auckland to Dunedin.
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