Aramco School Pioneer Remembers
- Community
- Annuitants & Former ExPats
Author: Saudi Aramco Week (Mona S. Hassan)
Released 8 March 2007
Stephen Thomas Furman in front of Dhahran School with daughter, Theresa Grutzius; her husband, Donald; and their children, Bradley, and Madalyn.
Photos by Mona S. Hassan
DHAHRAN, March 07, 2007 -- Dhahran School eighth-graders recently got a history lesson that hit close to home. Stephen Thomas Furman recalled his experiences as the first student at the Aramco School when it opened in October 1945.
Four generations of the Furman family have lived in Dhahran. Furman, the second generation, was in Dhahran in February visiting his daughter, Theresa Grutzius, and her family: husband Donald, and children Bradley, an eighth-grader, and Madalyn, a fifth-grader. It was Furman's first trip to Dhahran since 1990.
In addition to being the son, father and grandfather of Saudi Aramcons, Furman himself worked for the company from 1974 to 1985.
Furman gave the students a light-hearted, anecdote-filled presentation on his experiences when he first arrived as a 6-year-old in Dhahran in June 1945.
His great adventure began when he and his mother, Claudine, traveled from New York on a Swedish hospital ship used throughout World War II. They steamed across the Atlantic, with stops in Naples and Athens before arriving at Port Said, Egypt.
From there, they went by train to Cairo, by plane to Bahrain and finally by launch to al-Khobar to be reunited with his father, who came to work in Saudi Arabia in 1939. The entire journey took a month.
Furman talks to eighth-graders
His father, Stephen Joseph Furman, the 134th American hired by Aramco to work in Saudi Arabia, retired in 1962.
Before school officially opened in October 1945, Furman was determined to create his own fun.
"Dhahran was my oyster," he said. There were no expatriate children his age in the Dhahran camp at the time, so he played in the construction sites. He said he was running wild and "was a generally a big pain to everybody around."
In an effort to capture that energy, his mother persuaded his father to hire him as an office boy, a short-lived stint.
The black-and-white photos he showed the students helped convey what Dhahran camp was like then.
"We had no trees. We had no grass. We had no shrubs, and we had no flowers. We didn't have any paved roads. We had oiled sand for roads. And there were no sidewalks. And all that stuff was tracked in the house, which drove my mother mad," he said.
Furman spoke fondly about meeting King 'Abd 'Al-Aziz in 1947, when the King came to meet Aramco wives and children; about Sam Whipple, Aramco's first teacher, and his classmates; and about experiences with the Bedouins passing through Dhahran.
Furman said he remains in touch with several of his former classmates, who get together every other year in the United States in an event they call the Geezer Reunion.
Questions from the students brought up discussions about how badge numbers originated (they were laundry numbers), and the origins of the Dhahran community's Hobby Farm.
A photo taken of Furman as a young boy at the company's farm generated further interest. Furman's father was tasked to help feed the 100 employees that remained to run oil facilities during World War II.
He created and maintained a farm for several years, where he grew alfalfa to feed livestock. He organized cattle drives from Yemen, and so after a while, Aramco made its own dairy products and had its own beef supply.
Things have changed a lot since Furman was an Aramco student, but for a while, students looked back through time and connected with their history.