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In 1932 Matilda Garner came to Rappahannock as part of a depression relief program designed to help country women make the most out of what they did have, preserve food safely and properly, and introduce some new dishes into diets lacking in fresh food. Gardner was called a “Home Demonstration Agent” and in 1932 she spent her year here going into the homes of farm and village women. She also mobilized the home oriented talent all around her for the benefit of those lacking skills.
One of Garner’s efforts was a fashion show, demonstrating to young women that they could design and sew a dress for under 60 cents. Not only did her efforts work for the girls that competed, but she showed others who were interested that they could have something new to wear at very little cost. „
Garner’s successor, Georgia Wilkerson, also concentrated on food preparation and went back in Rappahannock’s hollows to show “modem” food preparation and storage techniques. Ruby Jenkins was hired as extension office secretary during Wilkerson’s years there, and she assisted her and eighteen other Home Agents before her retirement in 1979.
The home demonstration programs reflected many factors, Ruby said - the interests of the time, the direction from the state office, and the talents and interests of each agent.
After Wilkerson left in 1945 it gradually became a joke around the county that each demonstration agent would stay only a short time, leaving after a year or two to marry.
Ruth Brumback Sutphin came after Wilkerson. She was from around Winchester, and stayed for little over a year.
Next to serve the farm women of the county was Louise Rhoton, who was an expert seamstress, and set up classes around the county to teach this skill. She was nervous about first cooking demonstration, Ruby recalls, and so spent hours turning out pounds and pounds of homemade mincemeat in preparation for her first appearance before the ladies of Rappahannock. Rhoton, also, stayed only a year.
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