Khalid Saleem was born in 1915 and his wife Hilah in 1920, both in Al-Ahsa Region
Like his father and grandfather , Khalid worked all his life as a nomadic pastoralist
herding sheep and camels. His wife Hilah worked taking care of the home , her parents , and the children.
In those days , most sons of Bedouin families joined their fathers migrating with
their herds of camels and sheep to new grazing lands and for access to water. Khalid
and Hilah had five sons and three daughters. Some of his sons started working taxi
drivers and builders when there was not much work herding and they were close to
a town. But the youngest son , Hamad , went to live with his aunt and uncle in Hofuf
in 1955 when he was six. There he went to school and eventually to college . He
graduated in 1971 , when he was 22, in Chemistry.
He gave up the Bedouin life , married Nourah in 1974, the daughter of a local
storekeeper and settled in Hofuf not far from his aunt and uncle. Hamad got a job
with Aramco in the drilling section in 1975 and during the week he would live in
Abqaiq, going on his days off to be with the family .Hamad was still working for the
same petrochemical company when , in 2011 , he retired at the age of 62 of course,
he was not as old as his father or grandfather when they retired as they never really
retired at all.
Hamad and Nourah had two sons and one daughter. All of their children went
to school . The eldest son , Fahd , studied communications and went to Riyadh to
get a Master's degree , then settled in Riyadh where he has worked since 1999. Her is now studying a part-time for doctorate.
Only a handful of members of Hamad and Norah's families still follow the
Bedouin lifestyle but the family has not forgotten the ties of the traditional way of life