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This essay aims to provide
some background for the photos taken in Abadan in the late '50s
taken by my father, Charles Schroeder. Some general features of
the expatriate experience in Abadan will be given here along
with some more personal reminiscences. My father is now a robust
96 and lives in the suburbs of Chicago, the city where he grew
up and which is still home base for our extended family – though
I live in Maine now. My sister Ellen, who lived a year in Abadan,
also lives near Chicago. My mother Lois passed away about 10
years ago. [Also see part 2 of this phot essay: Khuzestan
1958-1960]
My father has given the ok for publication of the photos and for
me to write about our time there. His slides were taken with an
Argus C3 camera, bought specially for the trip. He has about 450
slides taken in various parts of Iran. Of these, about half are
from Abadan. The photos posted here are about 2/3 of the Abadan
group. We appreciate Mr. Javid's interest in publishing these
materials. Readers are invited to let me know where my memory
has gone astray.
In 1957 my father applied for an assignment within his company,
Socony Vacuum (since then Mobil, now Exxon Mobil) to work in
Iran. He got it, and in February, 1958 he traveled to Abadan,
where he was head of the refinery's payroll department for two
years. My mother, sister and I joined him there after the spring
school term, in June. I stayed there until he left in February
1960. My mother was there most of that time except for a couple
of months when she traveled back to the US with my sister, who
finished her senior year of high school at home. My 12th
birthday was a couple of months after we arrived in Abadan.
Socony owned about 1/7 of the “consortium” that had secured the
rights to refine and market Iran's oil. As one of the operating
companies, Socony had the obligation to send some of the
managers and engineers who staffed the Abadan refinery. The
consortium's official name was Iranian Oil Refining Company,
IORC. The other major entity involved in the Iranian oil
industry was the oil producing company, which was owned by the
Iranian government. It was called the NIOC, the National Iranian
Oil Company. The NIOC pumped oil out of the ground and sold it
to the IORC, which refined and distributed it via the partner
companies. These were the successors to the earlier AIOC,
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which controlled Iran's oil economy
between its discovery there in 1908 and the post-WWII period.
All of the earlier arrangements changed when the US and UK
outsted Iran's elected Prime Minister Mossadegh and reasserted
western control of Iran's oil resources. The new agreements
began in 1954.
My father's origin in Chicago was unusual for Americans in
Abadan. It seemed most of my schoolmates were from Texas or New
York, the centers of oil production and finance. This was his
only assignment overseas. Some of my friends had lived in other
oil localities such as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. My father had
been an accountant throughout his working life. In the late '30s
he worked in Chicago for a printing firm, a meat packing firm,
and an electrical appliance manufacturer, before getting the job
in in Socony's Chicago office, eventually becoming its
“paymaster,” in charge of payroll for that office. My impression
of my father is that he is a person of complete integrity and
personal decency, qualities perhaps somewhat missing from
corporate echelons today.
Among the “expatriates” in Abadan at that time were people from
several countries besides the US, mainly the UK and the
Netherlands. The community of foreigners linked to the refinery
numbered about 300. The refinery at that time was known as “the
world's largest.” It had an incredible 30,000 employees, mostly
laborers. I have no idea what they all did. Over 100 employees
worked in the payroll department. Their main task was to fill
weekly pay envelopes with cash, since there was no checking
system. They counted the money by weight. A photo of the payroll
department is among the slides.
Our family's personal community was made up of neighbors, a few
associates from my father's work including Iranians who were
among the managers in his department, families of my school
friends, and the members of St. Christopher's Church. The church
served overseas families who were Protestant, and was in the
Anglican tradition. Its ministers rotated like the refinery
staff. The kids my age who were part of the church had a group
of sorts, who mostly played games outdoors during and after
church events. There was an Iranian family who tended after the
buildings and grounds of the church. Their outdoor charcoal
brazier was one of hundreds in the yards and on the corners that
gave Abadan its particular flavor.
We lived at SQ (Staff Quarters) 1098 in New Braim, which was an
extension of Braim, an older mainly residential district. At the
center of Braim was a maze of houses surrounded by high hedges
known as Braim Square. Braim had several different sections,
including social gathering places such as the Naft Club (with
its outdoor cinema), the Golestan Club, the Central Annex, and
apartment blocks for single people (such as my teacher, before
he married, and my boy scout leader – I'm not sure what his job
was). There was a doctor's office in Braim, and a small grocery
store and bakery. Outside this store there were usually a couple
of men begging who were amputees. Women gathered to nurse
together at a crossroad near the store. I think it was there
that I first noticed the way of sitting on flat feet and with
legs folded. I'd never seen this before; it looked pretty
comfortable to me.
Also in Braim were Alfi's Store on “Pickadilly Circus,” the
river front including some of the docks, date groves and the
boat club. There were also several villages, most prominently
the mud houses of Braim Village. Some of the books I remember
buying at Alfi's include a paperback Koran and two collections
of journalism about WWII. We also got Time magazine there,
required reading for the current events lessons at school.
I think “green” when I think of Braim, with its shaded streets,
high hedges, nullahs, flowers. As for New Braim where we lived,
all was dust and dirt around new houses of brick and concrete.
It had a more American flavor than the rest of Braim. Other
places were a mystery to me. I recall the name “Segush Braim” --
where was that?
The school and the Braim pool were where I spent most of my
time. The pool was an environment unto itself. Two tennis courts
were part of it, made of crushed sea shells rolled flat with
heavy rollers. The lines were canvas tape nailed into the shell
court surface. This was rough on shoes, balls and knees. I was a
latecomer to swimming, and loved the pool especially. The
swimming skills I got there led to lifeguarding jobs for summer
work back home. Among the grounds keepers for the pool and
tennis courts were two brothers who lived behind the pool, who
were friends with the pool kids. There was also usually a coin
toss game going on played by ball boys flipping rials. I wished
I could play along.
Just behind the pool was a clay oven that produced endless piles
of “nun,” or as we called it, chapatti. I would stand
fascinated, watching the bakers flip the breads into the oven,
sticking up on its inside dome, peeled off with broad paddles
when done. I think the price was one or two rials each. I miss
the taste of that bread. Beyond the bakery was the “Old House,”
which may have actually been a house at one time, or an
abandoned warehouse. It was literally filled with glass bottles,
and there were holes in the roof through which we could climb
in. A proof of daring, at least for a meek person like myself,
was to take the leap from a nearby roof over a small walk to get
into the Old House. We weren't supposed to be there, and once
for no reason a group of us got into an exchange of rock
throwing with a group of Iranian boys. We ended up in the police
station near Alfi's, and our parents had to come and get us. All
of this was within a few blocks of the school.
Sometimes I'd take the bus with friends beyond the bazaar to
Bawarda, the other major neighborhood for overseas and Iranian
management staff, to swim in the Bawarda pool, where they played
Bill Haley's Rock Around the Clock on the PA. We'd also go to
the Seamen's Club for a swim or a snack. I first had a “Coney
Dog” there. And the Taj Cinema, of course, where I first had the
thrill of holding hands.
At school I was in the 7th grade one year, and the 8th grade the
next. Our unique “junior high” was Americans only. The school
also had separate K-6 sections for Americans, Dutch and kids
from the UK. Some families sent students to boarding schools in
Beirut or Switzerland, or left them home. My experience was
mostly with other American kids. A boy from Surrey lived a
couple doors down from us, and I knew a couple other British
kids, and went to a birthday party at the house of a cute Dutch
girl. Generally the various national groups of kids didn't have
much interaction with each other; at least that was my
experience. I knew a few Iranian boys, one friend from the
neighborhood just past New Braim, and a couple more from the
pool and scouts. I remember that the only westerner who spoke
Farsi was a German boy who had been there for about 15 years.
His father was a doctor.
I rode my bike or took the bus to school. The school was owned
by the refinery, as was everything else, from roads to water
system to bus line. In our room, the 7th graders were the two
rows on the right side, and we moved over to the left for 8th.
One teacher handled everything, the awesome Charles Libbert. Who
will forget the first words he uttered to our class: “In this
room I am absolute dictator.” Hmm. When everyone figured out
what that meant, we began to have a great educational
experience. He was a fully engaged teacher. Occasionally our
class was visited by Mademoiselle Suzanne, a person Mr. Libbert
recruited to give us lessons in French. We probably should have
been learning Farsi. Mr. Libbert went on to become math
coordinator for the Santa Barbara schools.
We took occasional day trips from Abadan. Groups went to the
“Sheikh's castle” up the river in the company's launch, and also
to Khosrowabad. Groups went to the ziggurat at Tchoga Zambil,
and to Shush and Shushtar. The boy scouts went on a couple of
camping trips, most memorably to Lali, where we camped in the
hills and were entertained by a man who played a shawm and his
son, probably, who played a drum. I also traveled by train to
the Middle East scout “jamboree” in Manzariyeh, Tehran, as part
of Abadan International Troop 1. I think the church group went
to Ahwaz, and somehow I remember seeing an antique Bugatti on
the street there. There was a deli there named Negro's where we
could get cheeses not found in Abadan. Once my father was
invited to visit the Ahwaz home of a relative of a colleague
from his office. The gracious family, the courtyard home, the
delicious meal are wonderful memories. While my mom was back
home with my sister, I traveled with my father to MIS and to
Kharg Island, when they were just beginning to plan for the port
there.
I'll try to convey something of the uniqueness of Abadan, beyond
these everyday arrangements. Foremost was the intensity of the
physical environment. The blazing sun and baking pavements were
most memorable. As a product of the frozen northlands, I truly
loved the relentless heat -- but of course I had a home and the
pool for retreat, and didn't have to work in it. Bluer skies
than Abadan's are impossible. The ever-flowing river was a
constant presence, and the canal-watered date groves and
irrigated neighborhoods of Braim provided a striking contrast
with the surrounding parched tan earth, on which as far as I
could see nothing grew except prickly “camel thorns.” I'd go to
the river to watch the freighters, tankers and dhows docked at
the shore. There was a continuing conflict with Iraq over the
river boundary (which still goes on), and there were usually
army men behind sandbags at the shore. Now and then US
destroyers and British frigates would sail up the river to show
the flag, and we could visit the ships and have the sailors to
home for a supper on shore.
Other elemental memories include the huge sulfur pile near the
Taj, and its smell, and the piles of salt at salt flats
somewhere near our house. Lizards scurried up and down the walls
of our house, living under the eaves, sometimes finding their
way inside. Once a massive cloud of locusts swept through town.
These yellow and green giants were a tasty catch for drivers who
raced down our street, then plucked freshly grilled snacks from
their radiators. I remember seeing a young man reading under a
street light outside our house. Was he there because he didn't
have light at home, or just needing to get out of the house? In
any case, I started to become aware of the particular privileges
we had.
Through it all was the smell of the refinery. To this day I will
occasionally flash on Abadan when filling my gas tank. The smell
was bad, the memories are good.
All of this is to say that the opportunity to live in Abadan as
a boy was a positive and life-changing experience. There was one
moment from that time that I have been waiting for a chance to
make an apology for, so I'll do it now. A few days after we
arrived, in a display of my ignorance, I ordered a resting man
away from the shade under the eaves of a neighbor's house. It's
not possible anymore to say “I'm sorry” personally to this
person, but perhaps this will help in a small way. In the grand
scheme of things this was a small event, but the grand scheme is
colored by thoughtless acts like this.
Probably the most lasting understanding that I gained from my
time in Abadan was a sense that my everyday understanding and
our own way of life is not the only way it can be. Whole
universes of difference surrounded us, from the kids from Texas
and England, to the people of the villages, markets and bazaar.
Added to this was experience the wonders of Iran's cultural
history such as Persepolis, Shiraz, the blue domes of Isfahan
that merged with the blue Iranian sky, and the misty atmosphere
of the Caspian's shores and hills. It was a privilege to be
there, and I hope to visit Abadan again. It is also my hope that
the unfortunate relations between the people and governments of
the US and Iran will begin to find some way to be mended
Paul Schroeder
April 27, 2007
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