Show and Tell Tuesday

I'm joining Barb @ Ruby Slippers Blog Design (my blog designer) for her weekly linky party Show and Tell Tuesday.

This is my first time to link up with Barb for her linky party. I have nothing to show and what I want to tell isn't technically about school, but it is about part of our country's (USA) history so I'm going for it.

Delaney and I were talking about World War II last week and somehow we got to talking about prisoners of war. I told her that I thought my dad had told me that they had some German prisoners of war that worked on their farm when he was a boy. As soon as I said it, I thought to myself did he really tell me that or am I making it up! lol

Anyway, a couple of days later he was at our house so I told her to ask him about it. One reason I'm "telling" this story is I didn't want to forget what he told me. He said that he was about 11 or 12 at the time. His dad and another farmer down the road "shared" 5 German Prisoners of War to work o their farms. It was just for two days, but my dad said he worked with two of them both days. He was driving the tractor and one of the POWs was on the ground tossing bundles of maize onto the trailer and the other was on the trailer stacking the bundles. One of the two spoke very good English and when it was his turn to toss the bundles, he would ride one the side of the tractor and talk to my dad. My dad said at one point, he asked if he would be allowed to move the gear shift. He said he had never seen one before.

When it came time for lunch the first day, my grandma fixed fried chicken, mashed potatoes, etc... for my dad and grandpa, but she also fixed enough for all five of the POWs. When my dad brought the food to them they had already made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches from their rations. My dad said they finished one half of the sandwiches and then carefully wrapped the other half in a napkin and put it in their pockets. They were very surprised and excited about the home cooked food. He said that one of the men put the five plates out and then they divided all of the food evenly.  the next day the other farmer asked his wife to do the same, but she refused to cook for the enemies, so he went into town and got them all a hamburger. My dad said that the ones he got to meet neither one wanted to go back to Germany. He said that they were young and didn't really even agree with or understand why they were fighting.

I searched for some pictures, but I didn't find any. I did find a really good article about the POW camps in Oklahoma HERE if you would like to read more.