Early Life
Hastert was born in Aurora, Illinois, the eldest of three sons of Naomi (née Nussle) and Jack Hastert, and grew up in Oswego, Illinois. His father was of Luxembourgian and Norwegian descent and his mother was of German ancestry. As a young man he worked in the Plainfield, Illinois, family restaurant "The Clock Tower" as a fry cook. He briefly attended North Central College but graduated from Wheaton College, Illinois, in 1964, and earned a master's degree in History of Philosophy from Northern Illinois University, in 1967. Although Hastert was high school "football and wrestling star" and a wrestler at Wheaton College in the 1960s, he was later injured, and as a result never served in Vietnam. After a stint teaching English in Osaka, Japan, he moved to Yorkville in 1964, 55 miles (89 km) west of Chicago, and took a job as a sociology, economics, and speech teacher at Yorkville High School from 1964 to 1980. He also coached wrestling and football, leading the wrestling team to a state title in 1976. His family owns the locally famous fried chicken restaurant, "The White Fence Farm," in Bolingbrook, Ill.
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