Brief biography

Jakob Strickler was born on January 29, 1688 on Richterswiler Mountain, where during his youth, he and his sister Regula lived in the tiny home of his parents, Heinrich Strickler (1636-1711) and his wife, the former Verena Hauser (1647-1713).
In those days there were no teacher's colleges to prepare him to become a teacher. It is presumed that he had the benefit of his early training from his father's cousin, whose small farm bordered that of his father and who was the schoolmaster at Bellen.
December, 1711 marked the death of his father.
In the course of the second Villmerger War of 1712, his residence was damaged.
When in 1713 Jakob Strickler lost his mother, he subdivided his parent's house with his sister.
From 1713 to 1716 he was the teacher in Stocken on the mountain at Waedenswil, and commencing in 1716 he conducted school in his own room.
In 1717 he married Regula Sennhauser of Schoenenburg. Of the six children only the last born survived childhood, and she married a table maker named Heinrich Rusterholz.
In the year 1760 Jakob Strickler was replaced by a younger teacher. The twilight of his life was spent with the family of his daughter, who had taken over the old family house.
He passed away on Christmas day of 1763, and the home remained in the hands of the succeeding generations of the Rusterholz family until its last member, Kaspar Rusterholz, died in 1898.