John Theophilus Richter (June 10, 1863 – January 24, 1949) and Vera May Richter ( Weitzel, December 11, 1884 – January 13, 1960) were an American married couple who ran an early
raw food
Raw foodism, also known as rawism or a raw food diet, is the diet (nutrition), dietary practice of eating only or mostly food that is cooking, uncooked and processed food, unprocessed. Depending on the philosophy, or type of lifestyle and resu ...
restaurant in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
, the Eutropheon, which became a meeting place for influential figures in the development of
alternative lifestyle
An alternative lifestyle or unconventional lifestyle is a lifestyle (sociology), lifestyle perceived to be outside the social norm, norm for a given culture. The term ''alternative lifestyle'' is often used pejoratively. Description of a related ...
s in
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
between 1917 and the late 1940s.
Biography
Theophilus John Richter was born in
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...
Pastor
A pastor (abbreviated to "Ps","Pr", "Pstr.", "Ptr." or "Psa" (both singular), or "Ps" (plural)) is the leader of a Christianity, Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutherani ...
Frederick Leberecht Richter and his wife Caroline Wilhelmina (née Grauman), who were immigrants from Germany and married in
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
Minneapolis
Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...
, before settling in the late 1870s in the newly established city of
Fargo, North Dakota
Fargo is the List of cities in North Dakota, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Dakota and the county seat of Cass County, North Dakota, Cass County. The population was 125,990 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, which was e ...
, where Pastor Richter became a
drug store
A pharmacy (also called drugstore in American English or community pharmacy or chemist in Commonwealth English) is a premises which provides pharmaceutical drugs, among other products. At the pharmacy, a pharmacist oversees the fulfillment of ...
owner and
physician
A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...
. During the 1880s, Theophilus Richter worked as a machinist while taking a natural healing course in Chicago, based on the "
Battle Creek
Battle Creek is a city in northwestern Calhoun County, Michigan, United States, at the confluence of the Kalamazoo River, Kalamazoo and Battle Creek River, Battle Creek rivers. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a tota ...
" system devised by
John Harvey Kellogg
John Harvey Kellogg (February 26, 1852 – December 14, 1943) was an American businessman, Invention, inventor, physician, and advocate of the Progressive Era, Progressive Movement. He was the director of the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Cr ...
vegetarian
Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the Eating, consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects as food, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slau ...
diet, and also gained a diploma in the " Swedish movement cure". According to Richter, he took over some of his father's patients in Fargo, and began treating them successfully using natural remedies. In 1891 he married Violet Berry, and in the early 1900s they moved with their children from Fargo to Minneapolis. He gained a qualification and began practicing there as a
naturopathic
Naturopathy, or naturopathic medicine, is a form of alternative medicine. A wide array of practices branded as "natural", "non-invasive", or promoting "self-healing" are employed by its practitioners, who are known as naturopaths. Difficult ...
physician. By 1911, he adopted a
raw food diet
Raw foodism, also known as rawism or a raw food diet, is the dietary practice of eating only or mostly food that is uncooked and unprocessed. Depending on the philosophy, or type of lifestyle and results desired, raw food diets may include ...
, influenced by the theories of
Benedict Lust
Benedict Lust (February 3, 1872 – September 5, 1945) was a German-American who was one of the founders of naturopathic medicine in the first decades of the twentieth century.
Biography
Lust was born in Michelbach, Baden, Germany.Anonymous. ( ...
and talks held in Minneapolis by a Chicago doctor, George Drews, and decided to dedicate his life to the promotion of the raw vegetarian diet.
After his first wife's death, he remarried in 1918, to Vera Weitzel, a native of
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
.California, County Birth, Marriage, and Death Records, 1849-1980, ''Ancestry.com'' Little is known of her background. The couple moved to
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
, where he became known as Dr. John T. Richter. Shortly afterwards, the couple established a raw vegetarian food restaurant, the Eutropheon (from
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
words meaning "good nourishment"), at 833 South Olive Street. In 1925, Vera Richter published a book, ''Mrs. Richter's Cook-less Book'', which included many of the food recipes served in the Eutropheon, and received considerable local publicity. The couple favored eating fruit in the morning, green vegetables and nuts for lunch, and root vegetables and nuts in the evening. They were opposed to the use of
coffee
Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...
,
sugar
Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose
Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...
,
salt
In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as r ...
,
tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
,
alcohol
Alcohol may refer to:
Common uses
* Alcohol (chemistry), a class of compounds
* Ethanol, one of several alcohols, commonly known as alcohol in everyday life
** Alcohol (drug), intoxicant found in alcoholic beverages
** Alcoholic beverage, an alco ...
,
meat
Meat is animal Tissue (biology), tissue, often muscle, that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted and farmed other animals for meat since prehistory. The Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of vertebrates, including chickens, sheep, ...
,
dairy products
Dairy products or milk products are food products made from (or containing) milk. The most common dairy animals are cow, water buffalo, goat, nanny goat, and Sheep, ewe. Dairy products include common grocery store food around the world such as y ...
refrigeration
Refrigeration is any of various types of cooling of a space, substance, or system to lower and/or maintain its temperature below the ambient one (while the removed heat is ejected to a place of higher temperature).IIR International Dictionary of ...
, and promoted
massage
Massage is the rubbing or kneading of the body's soft tissues. Massage techniques are commonly applied with hands, fingers, elbows, knees, forearms, feet, or a device. The purpose of massage is generally for the treatment of body stress or pa ...
barefoot
Being barefoot is the state of not wearing any footwear.
There are health benefits and some risks associated with going barefoot. Shoes, while they offer protection, can limit the flexibility, strength, and mobility of the foot and can lead ...
walking
Walking (also known as ambulation) is one of the main gaits of terrestrial locomotion among legged animals. Walking is typically slower than running and other gaits. Walking is defined as an " inverted pendulum" gait in which the body vaults o ...
, and
naturism
Naturism is a lifestyle of practicing non-sexual social nudity in private and in public; the word also refers to the cultural movement which advocates and defends that lifestyle. Both may alternatively be called nudism. Though the two terms ar ...
. They defended the ideals of the
Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...
, and supported US socialist leader
Eugene Debs
Eugene Victor Debs (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was an American socialist, political activist, trade unionist, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and five-time candidate of the Socialist Party o ...
. They lectured in the area, promulgated works on health and natural living by German writers such as Arnold Ehret, Louis Kuhne, and
Adolf Just
Adolf Just (born 8 August 1859, Lüthorst near Dassel, Kingdom of Hanover; died 20 January 1936, Blankenburg (Harz) was a German naturopath. He was the founder of the sanatorium Jungborn in Eckertal (resin).
Life
He began an apprenticeship ...
gym
A gym, short for gymnasium (: gymnasiums or gymnasia), is an indoor venue for exercise and sports. The word is derived from the ancient Greek term " gymnasion". They are commonly found in athletic and fitness centres, and as activity and learn ...
nasium owner, newspaper columnist and radio host Philip M. Lovell. The Richters established two further Eutropheon restaurants in
southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...
, which Lovell described as "the only ... restaurants in the country that function without the aid of a cookstove". In 1936, Dr. John T. Richter published ''Nature the Healer'', a book that went through several editions. The widespread use of the term "raw fooder" has been attributed to the Richters. They believed that, with a raw food diet, people should all live to be 140 years old.
According to one source, "the Eutropheon's phonograph boomed out
Hawaiian music
The music of Hawaii includes an array of traditional and popular styles, ranging from native Hawaiian folk music to modern rock and hip hop. Styles like slack-key guitar are well known worldwide, while Hawaiian-tinged music is a frequent par ...
while uncooked soups were served with a side of raw vegetables. The
body builder
Bodybuilding is the practice of progressive resistance exercise to build, control, and develop one's muscles via hypertrophy. An individual who engages in this activity is referred to as a bodybuilder. It is primarily undertaken for aesthetic ...
community of Los Angeles's first weights rooms and fitness centers rubbed shoulders with the Californian '' Naturmenschen'', the 'nature boys.'" The restaurant became known as a venue where the Californian "nature boys" – who included
William Pester
William Frederick Pester (born Friedrich Wilhelm Pester, July 18, 1885 – August 12, 1963)Robert "Gypsy Boots" Bootzin, and eden ahbez – would occasionally work, meet, stay, and share experiences. There, ahbez met singer, songwriter and radio personality Cowboy Jack Patton, who heard ahbez's song "
Nature Boy
"Nature Boy" is a song first recorded by American jazz singer Nat King Cole. It was released on March 29, 1948, as a single by Capitol Records, and later appeared on the 1961 album '' The Nat King Cole Story''. It was written by eden ahbez as ...
" and encouraged him to pass it to
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, alternatively billed as Nat "King" Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's career as a jazz and Traditional pop, pop ...
; Cole's recording of the song became a worldwide hit in 1948.
The Richters sold the Eutropheon restaurants to a former employee, Milan Geshtacoff, during the 1940s. It is thought that the restaurants closed in the late 1940s. John Richter died in 1949, aged 85, and his wife Vera died in 1960, aged 75.