Estelle Frankel Druskin
2006
Estelle Frankel Druskin, 94, who was owner and director of the Model Guild Inc. for 17 years, died Dec. 24 at the Rockville Nursing Home of hypertensive heart disease as a complication of dementia.
Ms. Druskin was born in Waynesboro, Pa., and grew up in the District, where her parents operated Frankel's Style Shop until the late 1950s selling men's and women's clothing. She graduated from  Central High School  and the old Poteet Business School and went to George Washington University at night to study journalism. She later worked for a direct mail company and the federal government's Lend-Lease Administration, before marrying in 1940.
When her husband, David Druskin, died in 1949, she sold classified newspaper ads for a while and then worked for a modeling agency. She opened her own agency in 1957, where she mentored other women who became professional models, and ran summer programs for inner-city youth. She also staged fashion shows throughout the city.
After the riots in the late 1960s destroyed the building on 14th Street NW that housed her business, she relocated to Connecticut Avenue and opened a second office in Chevy Chase. She closed her business in 1974.
In retirement, she enjoyed traveling, reading, knitting and painting.
She was a former resident of Chevy Chase and Rockville.
Her husband of 11 years, Mark Pluguian, died in 1990.Survivors include three children from her first marriage, Judi Levine Goozh of Rockville, Ken Druskin of West Palm Beach, Fla., and Cindy Perlis of San Anselmo, Calif.; two stepdaughters, Claire Gilbert of Bethesda and Edith Frank of Morristown, N.J.; three sisters, Marion Krakow of Silver Spring, Frances Abramson of Bethesda and Dorothy Filderman of Rockville; 17 grandchildren; and 14 great-grandchildren.