Thursday 03 Sep 2015 - 21:59 Makkah mean time-19-11-1436
North Country, US (IINA) - During his official visit to Washington, D.C., Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman will be celebrated at a gala on Saturday evening, and among his guests will be 86-year-old North County twins Jackie Voskamp and Joyce Kriesmer, reports The San Diego Union Tribune.
The twins — who lived for decades in Saudi Arabia -- first met the late King Abdul Aziz in Dhahran in 1947. Seven years ago. The they returned to Dhahran as the guests of the late King Abdullah. In a joint interview Tuesday at Voskamp’s Vista home, the twins talked warmly of the decades they spent in Saudi Arabia, the generosity of the Saudi people and the camaraderie among the pioneering American oil workers who in 1933 established the remote desert drilling operation that would one day become Saudi Aramco, the world’s richest and largest oil company.
Even in their 80s, the sisters are hard to tell apart. Dressed identically in black and adorned with elegant gold jewelry, they finish each other’s sentences and carefully confirm each other’s memories of their colorful lives in the Middle East. Jackie and Joyce were born seven minutes apart on March 1, 1929, in Los Angeles. Nine years later, their dad, Roy Haug, landed a high-paying job ($209 a month) with Aramco drilling oil wells near Dhahran. The twins, their older brother, Buddy, and mother stayed behind in Central California. When World War II erupted, Haug was sent home and after the war, he returned to Dhahran with his family
The twins were striking blondes just out of high school and up for an adventure. In those days, Dhahran was a rugged, military-style outpost with streets of sand and no hotels or restaurants. Flour had to be sifted for weevils and fresh dairy and produce items quickly spoiled in the heat, which hit 120 in the shade by noon every day. The region was prone to fierce sandstorms as well as the occasional locust swarm so thick you could swing a tennis racket and bat down hundreds of the black buzzing insects. “It was a shock,” said Joyce, who lives in Rancho Bernardo. “We were only teens who did what our parents told us to do. Thank goodness there were two of us because it was pretty stark.”
Men outnumbered women 20 to 1 in Dhahran and the presence of twin teenage girls was so novel that in the town of Quatif a crowd of children chased the sisters down the street to get a closer look at their fair skin and matching features. On Jan. 25, 1947, King Abdul Aziz made a ceremonial visit to the American family compound at Dhahran. He greeted all the wives and their combined 29 children, including Joyce and Jackie (in matching polka-dot dresses), whose meeting with the king was captured on film by the famed combat photographer David Douglas Duncan.
The twins passed the time taking Arabic lessons, swimming and going “pot picking,” which meant scouring the desert sands for geodes, jewelry, gold coins, pottery and other items that had fallen from Bedouin camel trains on Haj to Makkah. The sisters also enjoyed hosting dinner parties. With so many well-educated engineers flooding into the fast-growing oil town, the twins — who worked in the town’s library — soon met their future husbands.
In 1949, Jackie married George Larsen. They had two children and spent 27 years in Saudi Arabia plus three more in Nigeria and Beirut. After Larsen passed away, she married Raymond Voskamp. They’ve lived in Vista’s QuailRanch community for 17 years. Joyce married John Kriesmer in 1951. They had three children and spent 35 years in Saudi Arabia before returning to the United States. From 1998 to 2011 they lived in Escondido. Four years ago they moved to Rancho Bernardo’s Remington Club, where John passed away in 2013.
The twins said they were both shocked when they were invited back to Dhahran in May 2008 for Aramco’s 75th anniversary celebration. Twenty-fiveof the 29 children who were greeted by King Al-Saud in 1947 returned to meet King Abdullah and each received velvet suitcases filled with gifts of gold bracelets and hand-embroidered gowns.
One of the biggest surprises of their visit was a re-enactment of the 1947 meeting, performed by local children and actors — including twin teenage girls dressed in matching polka-dot dresses to resemble the young Jackie and Joyce. The twins said they hardly recognized the now vast town of Dhahran, but they immediately remembered how much they loved the gracious Saudi people who welcomed them “home” after so many years away. “We were treated like rock stars. I don’t think I’ve still come down to earth yet,” Joyce said.
Arthur Clark, the Houston-based editor of Al-Ayyam Al-Jamilah, a global magazine for Aramco retirees, wrote in 2008 about the tradition of “the kings and the 1947 kids.” He wrote that the reunion cemented the enduring friendship between the Saudi and American people. In the article, Clark quoted Saudi Aramco’s then-president Abdallah Jum’ah who spoke to the “1947 kids” and their families at a 2008 dinner in Dhahran. “We appreciate what you have done, what your fathers — possibly your grandfathers — have done, and we will keep that appreciation with us forever,” Jum’ah said. “The success of Saudi Aramco is basically its American connection, its heritage. The American tradition, the American background, is our own, and we built on it.”
The twins are all packed for their flight to Washington on Thursday, which is being paid for by Aramco Services Co. The gala on Saturday is the culmination of King Salman’s first official visit to the U.S. since being crowned in January. He is scheduled to meet with President Obama at the White House on Friday.
HA/IINA
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