Antonio Villacampa

Antonio Villacampa Montalbán was born July 5, 1925 in Aineto, in the Province of Huesca, part of the autonomous community of Aragón in the Pyrenees Mountains of Spain. He was the son of Teodora Montalbán and Emilio Villacampa. He is survived by his younger brother Constancio Villacampa, in Zaragoza, Spain, his younger sister Purificación Calvo Villacampa, in Barcelona, Spain, six nieces and nephews and their children in Spain; two daughters from his marriage to Magdalena Rosero, Yolanda Villacampa, and Silvia Villacampa, residing in Northern Virginia; son-in law; and his grandson who is a student at Virginia Tech. Antonio was born and raised in a remote part of Spain and witnessed and survived the Spanish Civil War which lasted from 1936 to 1939 and caused the unfortunate closure of his school and the end of his formal education. During his youth, he completed his military service in Spain and spent some time in France. In 1951, he arrived in Habana, Cuba where he lived and worked for 11 years. In 1962, he arrived in Florida and lived in Palm Beach. He drove Route 1, arriving in Washington, DC in 1962 and lived there for nine years. In 1967, he married Magdalena Yolanda Rosero from Ecuador, whom he met in Washington, DC. They were part of the then, very small Spanish-speaking community of immigrants from mostly South America and Spain. He worked for the Embassy of Laos as the ambassador’s chauffeur. In 1968, he began working as a museum guard at the Dumbarton Oaks Museum in Washington, DC. During his career he worked the evening shift, took additional shifts, and worked second jobs to support his family. In 1971, he became a resident of Arlington, Virginia, where he lived the rest of his life. While working at Dumbarton Oaks Museum in the Georgetown neighborhood he enjoyed meeting and getting to know the research fellows who came to the museum and library to study its Pre-Columbian and Byzantine art and artifacts collection. Many of the fellows were from Greece, Turkey, Great Britain, France and Russia. He retired from the Museum in 1990. Antonio enjoyed reading the Washington Post, and always had hardbound encyclopedias and road maps for travel on hand. He enjoyed flower and vegetable gardening. He taught his daughters to ride a bike. He took his family on summer vacations to Ecuador and Spain so they could get know where he and his former wife had grown up. They also vacationed on the East Coast of the US, at campgrounds and beaches, between North Carolina and Pennsylvania. He took pleasure in photography on these travels with his 35 mm film camera. During retirement, Antonio enjoyed traveling domestically and abroad, ballroom dancing, dominoes, and spending time with his daughters and grandson.