Alexander Daveron
Colorful Characters along the Rio Paraguai
Dr. Alexander Daveron was a well respected North American expatriate who lived in Cáceres until his death in 1987. At his chácara on the banks of the Rio Paraguay he liked to speak of when he had first come to Brazil from John Hopkins in the early thirties as doctor to an expedition to Mato Grosso. He was no stranger to adventure. He told many tales of the "shell-shocked" veterans of the Great War he had come across in his travels. His papers are located in the archives of UNEMAT (University of the State of Mato Grosso). A clipping from a Baltimore paper written after his return from this first expedition is titled "SCOFFS AT STORIES OF JUNGLE DANGERS" and "STUDIED VAMPIRE BATS". He was quoted on this favorite subject:
"Up and down the country I found German and Russian war veterans living off the land like Indians. All had been badly wounded in the war. All were fearless men, unable after their experiences in the trenches to adjust themselves to civilization.
"These men were 'made' pioneers. I also found evidences of the true pioneer spirit, that urge that impels some men always to form an advance guard skirmishing beyond civilization?s outposts. They are the men who make success possible for scientific expeditions.
"One such I found living on the Rio Paraguay, 3,000 miles north of Buenos Aries and five days by boat beyond the little village of C[o]rumba, our last point of contact with the outside world. He was John Gordon Ramsay, now 76, who used to be manager of the famous Bar C Ranch in Texas. He's still raising cattle.
"He was of inestimable help and insisted that I build a permanent laboratory on his place there on the river [at Descalvados]. He helped me, and now I have a place to go back to, as I hope to do in another year. Another who helped me was Jóse Rapp, a Boer War veteran raising cattle on the Bolivian frontier. Rapp's a great jaguar hunter and has shot more than a hundred."
Both Ramsay and Rapp married and had children very late in life as is often the custom here. Surviving sons and daughters of each and many of their offspring live in Cáceres to this day. The Rapps are a significant presence on the Bolivian and Brazilian sides of the border. Dra. Elisabeth Ramsay is a respected trial lawyer and wonders about what relatives she might have in Texas. John Gordon is buried at Descalvados, Daveron in the front yard of his chácara with a view of the Rio Paraguay, and Jóse Rapp in San Matias.
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