ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, November 11, 1996 TAG: 9611110121
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: JON CAWLEY
A former county Home Extension agent and founding member of the Smith Mountain Lake 4-H Club died Saturday night in Florida at the age of 87.
Margaret Rawlinson Svoboda of Leesburg, Fla., formerly of Salem, died at Leesburg Regional Medical Center after a brief illness.
Svoboda graduated from Virginia Tech in 1932 with a degree in home economics and completed post-graduate work at Western State Teacher's College at Western Michigan University in 1933.
Many people, Svoboda thought, misunderstood what a college home economics course consisted of. "It isn't just cooking and sewing," she said in a 1966 Roanoke Times & World-News interview. "But mostly social sciences and home management."
After completing her education, Svoboda returned to Virginia and began working to help homemakers manage their households better.
Svoboda took the job of home demonstration agent in Louisa County in 1933 and transferred to Chesterfield County after two years. She became the Roanoke County home agent in 1946 and, in 1955, was appointed home agent for a 16-county district that included the Roanoke area and extended from Bath to Pittsylvania County.
Home demonstration agents taught women at their homes how to solve daily problems, from roasting a turkey to removing rust stains and redecorating, and to organize their time to maintain smooth operation of the household.
Svoboda said this would create extra time women could use to serve the community. "Women render invaluable service to the church and community and many talented women are lost because they simply say, 'I don't have the time,''' she said in 1969.
Svoboda went on to become a district supervisor of home demonstration agents and a founding member of the 4-H club at Smith Mountain Lake, sitting on the board of directors. Among Svoboda's other accomplishments were serving as president of the Virginia Home Economics Association, as a fund-raising coordinator for the Red Cross and as the first woman elected to Virginia Tech's Alumni Association's board of directors.
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