[3] Growing up in the small wooded town of Lake Grove, ten miles south of Portland, Suzanne enjoyed a vigorous early life including swimming daily in the summer in Oswego Lake By Junior High, she was trained and coached by the Multnomah Athletic Club's International Swimming Hall of Fame Coach Jack Cody.

[4] With only a year or two of training at 14, but showing competitive skills, she was selected to receive a spot at the National championships in 1939 at Portland's Janzen Beach swimming pool.

The team of Zimmerman, Merki, Helser, and Joyce Macrae set a new American national record of 4:45.7 in the 400-meter freestyle relay at the Far Western Swimming Championship in San Francisco on October 13, 1940.

[11] On June 28, 1958, Zimmerman married Gordon L. Edwards, an urban planner, who was studying for a Masters in City Planning on scholarship at Harvard University.

[13] The couple travelled extensively, with residences in Boston, New York City, Manila, Dallas, and Vancouver, British Columbia before she returned to live most of the remainder of her life after 1974 in Portland.