Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 3, 1993 TAG: 9305030132
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Known as "Mama Minnie" or "Mom Minnie" by generations in Garden City, she was the oldest charter member of Garden City Baptist Church, organized in 1929.
For decades, she was part of everything that went on there - quilting bees, weddings and countless church suppers.
During the Great Depression, she and her late husband, William Ridgeway, used their cattle, milk, butter and garden produce to feed their neighbors.
The eating at the Ridgeway house was so good, "When they talk about the Depression, we don't know what they're talking about," said her daughter, Mozelle Gibson.
Most of her life, Minnie Ridgeway cooked three meals a day. And three times a day, she baked bread - rolls, doughnuts, loaf bread or biscuits, all from scratch.
"She always cooked like she was cooking for people who worked out in the field," Gibson said. "Her son-in-law and her first grandson think nobody on earth can cook a pot of cabbage like my mother could."
She even cooked potato chips.
About 10 years ago, when her health was beginning to keep her indoors, Gibson bought a Boston terrier puppy and named him Pepi. "She would have crawled to take care of him," Gibson said.
Ridgeway was in the hospital most of the last three weeks, and all the while, "She wanted to get well so she could come home and take care of Pepi."
Ridgeway is survived by 28 children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.
Funeral services will be today at 2 at Garden City Baptist Church, with burial in Sherwood Memorial Park.
by CNB