Five wives (at least), up to 13 military conflicts, eight children (at the very least).
Lover, Soldier, Reprobate
About the exciting and troublesome life and family of Paul Bonaventura Charles Alexander Weiss DeVolpi: shanghaied when he immigrated from Italy in 1890 to the United States; enlisted three times in the U.S. Army, initially serving in Oklahoma Indian Territory around 1893; fought as a mercenary in many nations; and left a handful of wives around the world.
His wartime enlistments included the Spanish-American War, the Philippine Insurrection, and the Canadian Army during World War I.
Other combat engagements: the Boxer Rebellion, Mexican Revolution, and repatriation of Tripoli and the Dodecanese Islands. (However, his participation with the Italian Army in Abyssinia and the Cossacks in Russia are difficult to verify.)
That's the Soldier part. As for Lover, there are four well-documented marriages in the United States, Canada, and Italy; also at least one or two more not confirmed.
As for Reprobate, that's what a now-deceased half-brother from Canada called him – with good reason. No divorces. Plenty of children.
This is an historically factual and authentic trip starting in the late 1800s, written as a dialog between his surviving son (me, Alexander DeVolpi) with curious parties and interested listeners.
Particularly fascinating is Bonaventura’s role in the Boxer Rebellion and his documented heroism during the Philippine Insurrection, all of which represent a forgotten but curious period in American history.
Timeless photos, documents, and newspaper clippings are included so as to depict the individuals, their clothing, whereabouts, surroundings, medical profiles, correspondence, diaries, heraldry, medals, uniforms, and weapons.
A true story – mostly about marriage, valor, and deceit.
If you join me on this trip, it’ll transport you back to the 1900s, and to many places around the world.
Be that as it may, it’s part biography, part history, mostly about my wayward father, a career soldier of fortune.
Book written by Alexander DeVolpi
Each of the flags on the front cover represent nations that my father fought for or against.
Please go to next (Purchase) page [click in the left-hand column on this page] for ordering information.
Bonaventura, the subject of this biography, is depicted in in the upper left corner of these web pages with a 1938 photo. He was born in Venice, Italy, in 1873 and died in Milan, Italy, 1951.
His occupation, matrimonies, and patrimony have been reconstructed from over a thousand pages of archival documents supplied by U.S. and Canadian natonal archives. Photographs have been contributed by family members. Substantial documentary evidence -- supplemented by genealogical, census, and immigration records -- has been the foundation of this book about Bonaventura's lifetime, loves, and children. The source material was collected over a time frame of 40 years.
This book -- Lover, Soldier, Reprobate -- contains a full account of his exploits and his imprint on suceeding generations, Biographical information is included on four of his wives -- for which marriage certificates have been found. For many of Bonaventura's children, as much information as available is included on their birth, upbringing, and passage through life.
Here's a summary of each of the ten chapters: any of which can be purchased separately ( see Purchase page):
CHAPTER 1: SHANGHAIED AND INDIAN WARS
My father, born 1873 in Venice, Italy, somehow managed to make it to the United States by 1892, but before that he was either shanghaied or otherwise ended up as a sailor in the Chilean Navy during its 1891 civil war. In any event, he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1892 at the age of 19 and was sent to the Oklahoma Indian Territory with an infantry regiment that had to help keep peace between the farmers, cattlemen, Indians, and Sooners -- just as the Cherokee Strip was opened to settlers in a congressionally mandated 1893 land rush. Chapter 1 contains a preview of the flavor and contents of the entire book.
CHAPTER 2: LOCKPORT
After the Indian Wars in Oklahoma, my father was assigned by the Army to Ft. Niagara, upstate New York, a fort that once figured in U.S. fighting against the French, the Indians, and the British. There he met his first wife of record, Bessie -- of Lockport, New York -- and he fathered three children with her before his six-year enlistment ended.
CHAPTER 3: THE PHILIPPINES
When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, my father re-enlisted in the U.S. Army and went into arduous training in Virginia and Pennsylvania, but the war ended in just four months and he was discharged. However, the Philippine Insurrection soon began; he re-upped and was shipped over to the Philippines where, according to military citations, fought bravely in the type of jungle warfare often considered America’s first VietNam. He also was assigned to a special mission to rescue Americans and other foreigners trapped in Peking, China, during the 1900 Boxer Rebellion.
CHAPTER 4: CANADA AND THE WORLD
Just before leaving for the Philippines, my father married a Canadian girl, Kate, in New York City (without divorce from Bessie). Years later, when he returned to North America from the Orient, my father took up residence in Montreal, Canada, and he and Kate had three children. During these years, my father fought as a mercenary in several wars: with the Federales in the Mexican Revolution of 1910, with the Italian Army in the first and second Balkan Wars of the Mediterranean, and eventually with the Canadian Army in France during the first World War, and maybe a little later in the Russian Revolution.
CHAPTER 5: NEW YORK CITY
Years later my father showed up in New York City and married my mother (without mentioning prior marriages). He became a businessman and maybe a con-man, as an exporter-importer having some role in one of the most infamous art scandals in history. My mother, Bertha, was a manicurist at the time, but before that she played semi-pro baseball in the early "Bloomer Girls" semi-pro league – a predecessor to "A League of Their Own." I was her only child.
CHAPTER 6: ITALY
Being of Italian origin, with his mother and sister still living in Italy, and with many business connections, my father frequently traveled between the United States and Europe. Along the way, he married an Italian girl, Romana – an artist, author, and historian -- and they had a child together. When the second World War broke out, my father was stranded with his family in northern Italy, and they rode the war out together. He died in Milan a few years after the war.
CHAPTER 7: REVELATIONS
The several marriages of my father eventually came known to my mother in New York City and to his other wives in upper New York and Canada, although it took many years before they found out about each other. Perhaps even then, not all of his loves and children were discovered, as there are resolved matters of a possible wife, Virginia, and son in Oklahoma Indian Territory -- and also an Annetta that crossed his path many times and many places in the 1920s and 1930s, with a daughter who stayed in England. And what about Allison and son from Philadelphia?
CHAPTER 8: PENSION STRUGGLES
Because of my father’s three enlistments in the U.S. Army, having reached the top rating of master sergeant, with decorated combat service during the Philippine-American War, he was entitled to veterans benefits for himself and his wife or children. But which wife? His marital infidelity unraveled when several wives, including my mother, found out – thanks to a U.S. Veterans Administration file over 500 pages long (in addition to his detailed U.S. and Canadian military records). Each wife struggled to obtain a fair share of his meager pension during the 1930s -- years of economic depression.
CHAPTER 9: LATEST FINDINGS
With modern library and Internet resources, and with increased interest and attention to genealogy, it has been possible to piece together much of this odyssey of war and family. As more immigration records, ship manifests, and government documents became available, facts could be sorted from fabrication. Of greatest historical surprise have been findings that tend to corroborate my father’s career as a genuine soldier of fortune, in up to 13 wars, including a Chilean Civil War of 1890, the Oklahoma Indian Territory conflicts, the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars, the Boxer Rebellion in China, two Mexican revolutions, two Balkan wars, the first World War -- and possibly even the Russian Revolution of 1918, the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, and Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia in 1895.
CHAPTER 10: WHERE IT ALL BEGAN with AUTHOR’S NOTES/AFTERWORD/LIST OF TOPICS
Thanks in part to letters, postcards, and photos – heirlooms salvaged and passed along by each of the four surviving family branches that originated in upper New York state, Canada, New York City, and Italy – it has been possible to piece together not only the travels, wars, marriages, and children of my father, but also the origins of his family in Italy: going back to the 1300s in Como and Bari, and to the 1700s in Trento in northern Italy. And, as of the year 2011, my half-sister born in Italy, and myself, still survive, now having learned of and met each other and our respective families, along with many descendants of the Canadian and upstate New York branches of the family.
The author of Lover, Soldier, Reprobate -- Dr. Alexander DeVolpi -- is the sole surviving son of Bonaventura.
Born 1931 in New York City, and schooled mostly in Virginia. Retired from a career in nuclear physics and engineering. Undergraduate degree in journalism, with a BA (1953) from Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia. Two technical degrees from Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, Virginia: MS in Nuclear Engineering Physics (1957) and PhD (1967) in Physics.
Whereas my father’s military career was varied and war-ridden, mine was comparatively passive, having served during the latter part of the Korean War on an U.S. Navy amphibious ship out of Little Creek, Virginia. Discharged from active duty after 3½ years, I remained in the Navy Reserve and retired after about 16 years as a Lieutenant Commander, USNR.
My professional career was centered at Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois, having retired in 1999 after 40 years in nuclear research and engineering: managed two projects (hodoscope diagnostics and arms-control/nonproliferation), and patent holder for inventions related to the neutron and gamma-ray hodoscope. Argonne was operated by the University of Chicago with funding mostly from the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense.
My professional publications largely deal with nuclear fission, nuclear safety, nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. These are supplemented by several technical-review papers and chapters in professional-review publications.
Prior books include Proliferation, Plutonium and Policy: Institutional and Technological Impediments to Nuclear Weapons Propagation, Pergamon, 1978; Born Secret: The H-Bomb, the Progressive Case and National Security (coauthored) Pergamon, 1981; Nuclear Shadowboxing: Contemporary Threats from Cold War Weaponry. Volume 1: Cold War Redux (2005); Volume 2: Legacies and Challenges (2006) (coauthored) Fidlar Doubleday, 2004 and 2005. *My most recent books comprise a trilogy published in 2009 under the title Nuclear Insights: The Cold War Legacy: Volume 1 is "Nuclear Weaponry (And Insider History)"; Volume 2: "Nuclear Threats and Prospects (A Knowledgeable Assessment)"; Volume 3: "Nuclear Reductions (A Technically Informed Perspective)." The three volumes of Nuclear Insights are available on www.Amazon.Com.
