"Dear Folks": The Webster Letters From Arabia, 1944-1959
- Pipeline
- In Search Of Oil
- Dear Folks
Author: Ken Slavin
Released 9 January 2007
I can’t remember a time when Aramco wasn’t part of my life.
Some of my earliest memories are of such phrases as as-salam alaykum, al hamdulillah and fi-aman allah. The Aramco Handbook was on a shelf in my bedroom. My parents’ house was full of Arab rugs, costumes, artwork and furniture. I thought everyone had a copy of the Koran hanging on the living room wall. And tales of oil wells and refineries, Saudi princes, Tri-District dances, the Flying Camel, boarding school in Beirut and long leaves in Europe and the States were frequent topics at the dinner table.
Yet I have never set foot in an Aramco camp and have never been to Saudi Arabia.
As the grandson and namesake of an Aramco pioneer, and the son of an original Aramco “brat”, I absorbed the rich history of the company through “osmosis” as a child – then through avid research as an adult. Over the years I have learned to admire and respect the legacy of the Arabian American Oil Company and the Americans and Arabs who created, sustained and grew it during those formative years of the mid-20th century.
Dhahran District Manager K.R. Webster, in his office, 1952
Photograph courtesy of Sue Slavin
My late grandfather, Kenneth R. Webster (known as “K.R. Webster” to company officials and simply as “Ken” to his friends and co-workers), first went to Saudi Arabia in October 1944, where he was supervisor of construction on the new refinery under W.R. Cooper. His wife, Mildred, and their young daughters, Sue (my mother) and Judy, joined him in March 1946. My mother, her sister and Mr. Cooper’s daughter, Nan, were the first American children in the Ras Tanura community, according to several sources, including articles published in the old Sun & Flare.
A Connecticut native and graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Ken Webster was a civil engineer who spent 13 years with Texaco before transferring to the newly formed Aramco. He loved the oil industry and from the moment he arrived on the Persian Gulf, he put his heart and soul into his work, taking on every kind of assignment imaginable and earning a reputation as one of Aramco’s “rising stars.”
His company career included many key posts in construction, community administration, government relations and oil operations. During his 15 years in Saudi Arabia, he held many senior positions, including District Manager of Dhahran (1951-57) and Director, Local Government Relations (1957-59). He transferred to the New York office in the spring of 1959, where he became Manager of the Manufacturing and Oil Supply Department. He also served as one of Aramco’s Middle East advisors to President Lyndon B. Johnson during the 1960s.
Working for Aramco suited his outgoing personality, keen intellect, precise nature and love of travel. In fact, his career was his life and, sadly, he passed away shortly after retiring as assistant to the Vice President and General Manager, U.S.A. Offices, in 1971. (My grandmother died later the same year.)
Of course, Ken Webster was “Grandpa” to me. I was only 10 years old when he died, but I was already a tremendous fan of the man who seemed like a larger than life hero to me. His sudden death has haunted me all my life. And as his oldest grandchild and namesake, I have always felt a certain responsibility to his memory. So, driven by my love of the grandfather I lost at such a tender age and by a desire to know more about him and the legendary company he was a part of, I began a journey of discovery when I was in my early teens – a journey that has continued to this day.
Now, thanks to the generosity of Vicci Thompson of the Aramco ExPats website, it is my pleasure to present a new series of articles called “Dear Folks”: The Webster Letters from Arabia, 1944-1959. Based on the weekly letters my grandparents sent Stateside to loved ones during their years in Saudi Arabia, I hope this series will be of interest to expats, brats, annuitants and others who enjoy reading about a Golden Age in American history. After all, the story of Aramco is very much the story of early post-World War II America and its “can-do” approach to everything.
These letters are loaded with colorful stories of everyday life in Ras Tanura and Dhahran, beautifully capturing the excitement and energy of the young Aramco of the 1940s and 1950s. Of course, they are subjective and “Webster-centric.” But I believe there are some universal themes and memories that run through them – and that the Aramco ExPats community will understand and appreciate them.
Reading these letters is like boarding a time machine or watching a wonderful old Technicolor movie. Both my grandmother (a former school teacher) and my grandfather (head columnist for the Daily Pennsylvanian while he earned his engineering degree) were gifted correspondents with tremendous self-discipline. Nearly every week, one of them would sit down at a desk or the dining room table and hand write or type a lengthy, detailed letter to family members in the States. To save time and to cover as much ground as possible at each writing, they addressed multiple carbon copies of the letters to “Dear Folks”, attaching short personal notes to each letter and mailing them to various relatives throughout the country. Their dedication to the fine (and lost) art of letter writing is evident in every sentence and on every sheet of old onion skin paper.
The immediacy and freshness of these letters make them fun, absorbing and informative reading for anyone who is interested in Aramco’s rich history – and the history of American enterprise overseas. These yellowing pages are full of pioneering Aramco names, such as Bill Cooper, Floyd Ohliger, Tom Barger, Norman Hardy, Ned Scardino, Don Wasson and Fred Davies; legendary and venerated Saudi leaders, such as King Sa’ud Ibn ‘Abd al ‘Aziz and Crown Prince Faisal; political figures who visited the camps, such as Prime Minister Nehru of India and King Faisal of Iraq; and celebrities of the day, including Lowell Thomas of newsreel fame and Florence Chadwick, the first woman to swim the English Channel.
Most important, these letters describe the everyday lives of one of the early Aramco families and how they interacted with their friends and colleagues. There are wonderful accounts of many “firsts” in the Aramco camps: the first Girl Scout troop, the first garden club, the first Little League baseball game, the first schoolhouse. They include regular updates on such “fun facts” as new births in the camps and new records for barrels per day; blow-by-blow descriptions of Royal Family visits to Dhahran; descriptions of the annual Nativity featuring live animals; gymkhana events at the Hobby Farm; parties, banquets, parades, outings to Khobar, and so much more. All in all, “Dear Folks”: The Webster Letters From Arabia is a tasty slice of history that I hope you will savor and enjoy.
The author, age 2, sitting atop an Arab chest in his mother’s living room, circa 1963.
Photograph courtesy of Sue Slavin
Beginning this month, I will begin presenting excerpts from the letters, along with wonderful family photos from the Aramco years, newspaper clippings and other mementos. I also plan to conduct extensive interviews with my mother and her sister, publishing some of their cherished memories, as well.
My first installment will include excerpts from my grandfather’s earliest surviving Christmas letter from Saudi Arabia and my grandmother’s first letter from Ras Tanura, after traveling for several days by company plane –with two little girls in tow.
It is my sincere hope that their stories will bring back fond memories for former and current Aramcons who read them. Even though I never had the privilege of experiencing Aramco first-hand, I feel a kinship with all of you through my grandparents, my mother and my aunt.