Alfonso Gonzalez

Alfonso Gonzalez passed away on Wednesday, February 14, 2024. He was born in The Bronx, New York, to Francisco and Angustia Gonzalez on March 21, 1927.

Alfonso grew up in The Bronx, NY where he attended Benjamin Franklin High School, graduating at 17 in 1944.

He served as a Sergeant in the U.S. Army and was posted in Tokyo, Japan after WWII as well as having served during the Korean War, working with maps as a draftsman. Although military service was not for him, he developed his love of travel, geography, and maps during his service and kept scrapbooks from those trips through Asia for the rest of his life.

He attended Clark University, graduating with his Bachelor of Arts in 1949, and then received his Master of Arts degree from Northwestern University in 1950.

Alfonso is a professor emeritus of geography at the University of Calgary in Alberta. Since receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Texas, Austin, he has been on the faculty at San Diego State College, Northeast Louisiana State College, Southern Illinois University, and the University of South Florida, where he served as chair of the Department of Geography. Professor Gonzalez specialized in Third World and Latin American geography, with particular attention to population, settlement, and socioeconomic development. He performed field and archival research in several areas of Hispanic America and Spain and has presented and published numerous papers and book chapters. He has co-edited. [with Jim Norwine] two editions of a book: The Third World (1988) and The New Third World (1998) and in 2005 he contributed a chapter 2, Landscape and Settlement Patterns in the book Latin America — Its Problems and Its People.

Alfonso loved Hispanic culture and often traveled with his partner, Alexandra, back to his family's hometown of Puebla de Trives in Galicia, Spain. In his 80's he added cruising to the Caribbean in winter and Alaska during the summer months. A Viking Cruise in 2013 took them from Kyiv to Odessa, Ukraine.

He loved classical music, Spanish guitar and even learned to play some of his favorite songs. Spaghetti, Neapolitan ice cream, chocolate, Turron [Spanish soft nougat], evening news, and he always had a soft spot for animals. He traveled the world studying and researching on most of his travels.

He was preceded in death by his parents Francisco and Angustia Gonzalez, his younger brother Carlos Gonzalez, and his wife Avelina [Gomez] Gonzalez. He is survived by his partner and traveling companion, Alexandra Dubrovna; his son Robert (Donna) Gonzalez; daughters Linda (John) Reynolds and Lisa (Danilo) Iglesias; his four grandchildren Michael (Megan Childers) Heinz, Jonathan Heinz, Cristina Iglesias and Alexander Iglesias; his nephew Gregory Gonzalez; and niece Yvette [Michael] Livesay-Wright; great-nephew Luke Livesay-Wright; great-niece Lola Livesay-Wright.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a memorial contribution to the Alzheimer's Association at  http://act.alz.org.

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