Strasser’s penchant for poetry began to shine through at an early age. He penned sundry, mainly humorous texts in the pages of his friendship book while still at secondary school. He then went on to study theology in Bern from 1873, making additional study trips to Germany. He was put forward for the position of pastor in Grindelwald without actually applying and unanimously chosen by the congregation on 23 February 1879.
The colossal glaciers close by had earned this parish in the Bernese Oberland the nickname of ‘glacier village’. Strasser quickly settled in and soon came to be known far and wide as the ‘glacier pastor’. Himself a keen mountaineer, he made the most of the surrounding Alpine landscape to venture forth on a number of hiking tours, often accompanied by local mountain guides. His passion for the mountains led him to join the board of the Swiss Alpine Club (SAC), where he would later become secretary of the Grindelwald section and chair of the examination committee for mountain guide courses. It was at an official SAC event that he first met Elise Anna Rüegg from the Zurich Oberland area. The couple would marry in 1881 and have eight children together: four girls and four boys.
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