[Puckster]

My childhood was there in Bismarck. This was from 1955 to 1966.....I didn't really get the Prussian vibe there.

Not that I'm doubting, but it sounds interesting...do you have a reference?

BTW, when I tell black coworkers that there were black families in Bismarck back then.....they look at me with incredulous faces.

[muawiyah]

Let me start his by noting that you grew up in an area just like Indianapolis. No one really knew that Zimmerman was a German name. Bismarck was renamed from whatever it had been named as a whistle stop on the railroad ~ to Bismarck ~ to attract German settlers. In the end they did manage to attract Russian Germans ~ see; http://library.ndsu.edu/grhc/research/scholarly/meetings_conventions/bloom.html