When he was a child, the family lived in St. Peter, Minnesota, and Minneapolis, before settling in the late 1870s in the newly established city of Fargo, North Dakota, where Pastor Richter became a drug store owner and physician.
[3] During the 1880s, Theophilus Richter worked as a machinist while taking a natural healing course in Chicago, based on the "Battle Creek" system devised by John Harvey Kellogg.
[2] They were opposed to the use of coffee, sugar, salt, tobacco, alcohol, meat, dairy products, cooked food, and refrigeration, and promoted massage, heliotherapy, iris diagnosis, sun gazing, barefoot walking, and naturism.
They lectured in the area, promulgated works on health and natural living by German writers such as Arnold Ehret, Louis Kuhne, and Adolf Just,[5] and were regularly patronized and promoted by Los Angeles gymnasium owner, newspaper columnist and radio host Phillip Lovell.
'"[5] The restaurant became known as a venue where the Californian "nature boys" – who included William Pester, Robert "Gypsy Boots" Bootzin, and eden ahbez – would occasionally work, meet, stay, and share experiences.