In Eveline Hasler’s novel on Henry Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross, she mentions ‘Wilhelm Sonderegger, teacher’ from Heiden/Appenzell, Switzerland. Sonderegger lived in the second half of the nineteenth century and taught gymnastics (Turnen) at school to increase the pupils’ physical activity. He also gave an inspiring speech at an assembly of Swiss gymnastics teachers in 1904, but passed away shortly thereafter at only 42 years of age. The methodology of Alain Corbin (The Life of an Unknown) is used to reconstruct the life of Wilhelm Sonderegger – starting with his death – and to discover how Sonderegger contributed to improving physical education in the Swiss school system in a rural area where it was commonly believed that children got enough physical activity by making hay or mucking out the barn. The approach chosen here of a detailed description helps to highlight the special features of the region and the living conditions found there. The topic of physical education, which this paper addresses, and the health of male adolescents and their preparation for the military through regular physical exercise, were topics that were also discussed across national borders in the second half of the nineteenth century as a result of the impact of industrialization and the military conflicts throughout Europe. The Appenzeller Zeitung contains articles by people from Munich who took a stand on this issue. These were not critically commented on by the Appenzeller Zeitung, the only publishing body in the region, as they were in line with its own arguments. The paper examines the influence of the pedagogical approaches of Swiss educator, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Johannes Niggeler, the father of Swiss gymnastics, and the effects on the pupils in the Appenzell region. An analysis of Sonderegger’s articles in the Appenzeller Anzeiger provides us with additional microhistory. The aim of this paper is to highlight the uniqueness of the situation in Appenzell, and to explore it from an ethnological perspective.