Some Iowans may not be aware of how the state played a role in World War II, and this overlooked history will be the focus of an upcoming event in Stuart.

The Stuart People Active for Library Service, or PALS, are hosting Iowan author Linda Betsinger McCann for a presentation on prisoners of war in Iowa. McCann has written a nonfiction book about the two major POW camps in Algona and Clarinda, and the smaller branch camps scattered throughout the state that housed about 25,000 Axis prisoners from January 1944-February 1946. McCann says the POW’s proved useful on people’s farms and in businesses, providing a workforce that was lost during the war.

McCann interviewed people across the state who worked with the POW’s, “I was surprised at how many families have kept in contact with, and this is mostly the German POW’s, the Japanese didn’t have a thing to do with us of course after they left, and not many Italians did. But a lot of German POW’s brought their families back to meet their ‘American families,’ as they called them. And a lot of them, I talked to people that in the third generation of their family are still in contact with those POW’s.”

You can learn more about this piece of Iowa history at 2:30 p.m. Friday, April 12th in the council chambers at Stuart City Hall. The event is free and open to the public.