VILLANUEVA-DONATO

NAVY  COOK  WHO  SERVED  FIVE  PRESIDENTS

Excerpts from obituary published in Washington Post on May 31, 2013:

Danny C. Villanueva, 87, a retired Navy senior chief petty officer who served five presidents at the White House and aboard the presidential yacht during his career as a military chef, died April 25 at Georgetown University Hospital.  His death from a stroke was confirmed by his daughter Beverly Villanueva Lee.  He was born Donato Castillo Villanueva on December 12, 1925, to a farming family in Alaminos, in the Philippines.  With the goal of gaining U.S. citizenship, he joined the Navy shortly after the end of World War II and was assigned to be a cook.  He was serving in the Mediterranean when his ship received a visit from President Dwight D. Eisenhower.  Villanueva so impressed the President with his cooking that he was invited to work in the White House, and he readily agreed.  He served in the White House staff mess at the end of Eisenhower’s presidency and during the administrations of Kennedy and Johnson.  During the Nixon and Ford administrations, he was a chef aboard the USS SEQUOIA, the presidential yacht, and served as its leading steward.

Andrew Combe, a retired Navy captain and former commanding officer of the SEQUOIA, described Senior Chief Villanueva as “one of the finest and most dedicated sailors I knew in my 30-year Navy career.  “He always did his work to perfection,” Combe said in an interview, and “was only satisfied with the very best.”  On the yacht Villanueva served what CAPT Combe described as “the equivalent of state dinners” to the President, cabinet members and dignitaries, including Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev during his historic 1973 visit to the United States.  “We didn’t panic.  We worked hard.  We found a way to accommodate them the way dignitaries are supposed to be entertained,” said a fellow Navy veteran who worked with Senior Chief Villanueva during Brezhnev’s visit.  “That was one of the best shows we had.  Nixon was reported to have used the SEQUOIA more than any other president in the boat’s history.  In the final days of his presidency, amid the emotional turmoil of his impending resignation, Nixon seemed to find in the boat a sort of refuge.”  At times, Combe said, Nixon would ask on short notice to go for a cruise.  “Getting the food together was quite a challenge,” Combe said, and Senior Chief Villanueva was “the one who made that happen.”

Senior Chief Villanueva served on assignments around the world, including in the Panama Canal Zone, throughout the Pacific and on a deployment during the Vietnam War.  After his Navy retirement in 1975, he worked for the US Postmaster General in the mail room and as a chef until 1992.  He belonged to several military associations and was a founding member of the Ilocano Society of America, a Filipino cultural organization. Survivors include his wife of 59 years, seven children, 22 grandchildren; and 13 great-grandchildren.

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)