Obituaries

-- Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb

Marguerite Ridgewell EllisCatering Firm Owner

Marguerite Ridgewell "Fifi" Ellis, 90, a former co-owner of a prominent Washington catering firm, died June 11 of lung cancer at her home at Maplewood Park Place in Bethesda.

Mrs. Ellis was a Washington native who graduated from the old Central High School. Her family's catering business, Ridgewells, was founded by her parents in 1928. Her father had been a butler at the British Embassy; her mother had been a chef at the French Embassy.

Mrs. Ellis and her husband, Clarence "Slim" Ellis, began operating the company in 1946 and made it a Washington institution. Mrs. Ellis, who liked to write her invoices in purple ink, had the company's trucks painted a distinctive purple color, which became Ridgewells signature.

The company has catered to every president since Harry S. Truman, as well as popes, Washington dignitaries, royalty and the 1978 summit meeting at Camp David between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

She held the office of vice president before turning over management of the company to her sons in the early 1970s. Ridgewells was sold in 1984 and continues to operate nationwide from its Bethesda headquarters.

Mrs. Ellis lived in Frederick and at Leisure World in Silver Spring before moving to Maplewood Park Place.

Her husband died in 1990.

Survivors include two sons, Bruce Ellis of Bethesda and Jeff Ellis of Virginia Beach; eight grandchildren; and 20 grandchildren.