The family initially lived in Viljandi. Jakob was among the peasant activists during the Estonian national awakening, who pleaded to Emperor Alexander II against the oppression by Baltic German nobility in 1865. After this, he came into conflict with the local nobility and was forced to move to Tahkuranna, near Pärnu, in 1873. As Konstantin's father was unable to find a job in Tahkuranna, the family moved to a rental apartment Pärnu in 1882. Three years later Jakob bought himself land in Raeküla near Pärnu, where they initially lived in the roadside Petlema Tavern, but built a new house after the tavern burned down. Jakob divided his land into smaller lots and built half a dozen new houses to the site that eventually grew into a borough and later a district of Pärnu.