Forms part of the Drive-in Restaurants of Portland Oral History Project.
Collection is open for research.
Gift of Curtis Johnson, February 1981 (Lib. Acc. 28441).
Wanda Lee Mutschler was born in Elk City, Oklahoma, in 1933. She came to the Pacific Northwest when she was 14 years old. She worked as a waitress in drive-in restaurants in several cities across Oregon. In 1950, she and Harold Wright Cassity were married; they later had two children. She was known as Wanda Lee Cassity until their divorce in 1979. In 1966, she began working as a carhop at Yaw's Top Notch in Portland, Oregon. She worked at Yaw's for 12 years. In 1980, she and Donald Paul Krueger were married; they later divorced. She was known as Wanda Lee Krueger until her marriage to Hugh Harrison Harvey in 1992. She died in 2014.
Forms part of the Drive-in Restaurants of Portland Oral History Project.
Handwritten index (3 pages) is available for in-person use at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Oral history interview with Wanda L. Krueger, by Curtis Johnson, SR 9247, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
This oral history interview with Wanda Lee Krueger was conducted by Curtis Johnson on November 13, 1980, at Krueger's home in Portland, Oregon. The interview was conducted as part of the Drive-in Restaurants of Portland Oral History Project, a series of interviews that Johnson conducted about the history of Portland drive-ins, with a particular emphasis on Tik-Tok and Yaw's Top Notch.
In this interview, Krueger discusses working as a car-hop at drive-in restaurants around Oregon. She names the many drive-ins she worked at and talks about why she preferred working as a carhop. She describes her work as a carhop at Yaw's Top Notch in Portland, Oregon, from 1966 until 1978. She speaks at length about interacting with customers, her co-workers, and the hazards she faced on the job. She discusses the popularity of Yaw's Top Notch, their menu, and the decline of drive-ins. She talks about problems with customers, about tipping, and about the uniforms at Yaw's. She closes the interview by revisiting the topics of interacting with customers and coworkers, the many drive-ins she worked at around Oregon, and the reasons she preferred working as a carhop.
Copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society. Use is allowed according to the following statement: Creative Commons - BY-NC-SA,