[colorado tanker]

Strong was in the middle of the great German emigration to the U.S., which would continue for a few years after the Civil War. German was widely spoken and there were many German publications.

German ancestry is still the largest ethnic group in the U.S. We don't notice it because the Germans have so thoroughly assimilated and few speak German anymore. My mother's family has an English sounding surname, but I was really surprised a couple of years ago to find evidence they actually came from Germany.

[Tax-chick]

When my maternal grandmother, who died around 1990, lived in the Philadelphia (PA) Protestant Home, the Home had a German church service each Sunday and a weekly German hymn-sing.