Josephine Margarita Lavezzo

Josephine Margarita Lavezzo

November 14, 1928 – May 18, 2026

Josephine Margarita Lavezzo, known as Margarita to most, Nanna to her two granddaughters, and Shorty to the man she married, passed away peacefully on Monday, May 18, 2026, in Orlando, Florida. She was 97 years old, long enough to see nearly a century turn. While she never learned to drive a car, you could always find her in the front seat.

She was born Josefa Margarita Diaz Barber on November 14, 1928, in Caracas, Venezuela, the only child of Carlos Diaz Moreno and Josefa Barber Almunia, who had come to Venezuela from Huesca, Spain. She was raised Catholic and remained so throughout her life, attending Good Shepherd and later Saint Nicholas Catholic Church in Orlando.

The story of how she first came to America is a love story worth telling. In the early 1950s, a close friend invited her to Florida for a dance, promising there would be a date who spoke Spanish. This turned out to be a charitable interpretation of the truth. Robert Anthony Lavezzo, or Bob to anyone who knew him, was a charming Italian-American man whose Spanish began and ended at “no comprende.” And she, not a word of English. What followed was a courtship conducted through letters, each one translated by a Chinese colleague at the bank where she worked, who knew enough English to carry two people across a language neither of them shared. Six months later, they were engaged. They married on April 4, 1952, at St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church in Winter Park, Florida. Bob affectionately called her Shorty. At barely five feet tall, she had earned it. Together they built a life that would last more than half a century, until his passing in 2009.

To people who did not know her well, Margarita was quiet and composed. To the people who knew her best, that was only part of her story. She loved slow mornings and reading the paper, and always ordered her iced tea unsweetened. She taught herself English by watching television while raising her two daughters, and kept it on late into the evenings for the rest of her life, the particular comfort of Spanish filling her living room. She tended a collection of orchids on her front porch, where she loved nothing more than sitting, watching the neighborhood pass by, perfectly content to let the world come to her.

She is survived by her daughters, Margarita Ann Lavezzo, of Orlando, Florida; Beverly Marie Lavezzo, and son-in-law, Dr. Dennis Horvath, of New Smyrna Beach, Florida; her granddaughter, Townsend Horvath, and partner, Kyle Grantier, of Austin, Texas; her granddaughter, Blaine DeGrange, and husband, Tye DeGrange, of Austin, Texas; and her great-grandchildren, Hayward Hollis, Gray Feist, and Fess Maverick DeGrange.

She will be missed by everyone who ever shared a porch or a balcony with her. For the family she leaves behind, the sound of Spanish on a television will always belong to her.

A funeral Mass will be held Saturday, May 23rd at Saint Nicholas Catholic Church, followed by burial at Glen Haven Memorial Park in Winter Park, Florida.