Carl "Pop" Pfefferkom
Carl "Pop" Pfefferkom, on Sunday, February 24, 1952, the result of a head-on collision near Gilroy, California (between San Jose and Salinas). The driver of the other car was also killed and was blamed completely by authorities for the accident. At the time of the accident Carl was alone.
On November 1st Aramco Management tendered a farewell party for Carl, and following his long vacation he was to have retired. He first arrived on Bahrein Island in 1935 and in 1938 returned to SOCAL; he became an Aramco employee in 1946. Carl's over-all service with SOCAL and ARAMCO was close to 32 years.
Surviving are his wife Charlotte and three children who reside at 25 Arroyo Court, San Mateo, California.
At the end of almost 32 years of service with ARAMCO and SOCAL, Carl "Pop" Pfefferkorn heads for retirement. Last Thursday evening, November 1st, Aramco Management tendered a farewell party for "Pop", and the gathering in the old Dhahran Theatre comprised mostly his old friends. Much of "Pop" Pfefferkorn's working days were spent in and around automobiles and automotive equipment.
Pop's record indicates he concluded his career in the Navy in 1908; following his discharge he went to Haverhill, Massachusetts where his grandfather had left a farm for him. Shortly after he journeyed to the Canadian Northwest where he surveyed for Knight and Driscoll out of Edmonton. In 1913 Pop went with the Locomobile Co. in Los Angeles, and in 1917 transferred to the Packard Co., testing hydraulic brakes with George Stevenson of the A.A.A. and Earl Cooper.
Fred Hillman, then vice-president of SOCAL, weaned Pop away from Packard; he went to work as garage foreman at Brea and Santa Fe Springs where the deep well drilling started, and the twin six Packards operated by the Company were regular visitors to the garage from then on. In 1926 Pop was transferred to the Home Office in San Francisco, but his job there took him out on the road, covering five western states.
Pop Pfefferkorn was transferred to the Bahrein Petroleum Company and arrived in Bahrein in 1935. Following a sojourn in Paris, he reported to Ed Skinner in a party with 25 wild Texas drillers. He returned to SOCAL after three years on Bahrein, and finally in 1946 he became an ARAMCO employee. He completed two tours of duty in Saudi Arabia.
Pop Pfefferkorn and his wife, Charlotte, leave behind them a host of friends in Saudi Arabia.
There are a number of people, in SOCAL, BAPCO, and ARAMCO, Pop Pfefferkorn considers his
life-long friends, but as he said before he left "you would not have enough paper to list them all."
We hope these two and their children will eke out the happiness they are determined to get in the
future. "Pop" did add something about "I'll tell you a good joke you can tell them all…"