Zachris learned the shoemaker’s trade from his father, but music apparently became the main focus of his life. The parish history reports,

Zacharias Åhrström was born in Luleå in the year 1806. He married in 1834 at 9 Böle, where he moved the same year. The family was musical, and when the post of organist became vacant (perhaps as early as the mid 1830’s; the records from that decade are mostly lost), Åhrström took the position.

The empty collection basket in the church haunted. The parishioners committed in 1850 to an agreement to provide a 1/8 mantal parcel of land for an official residence for the organist. Nothing came of it. He made do with the scanty area that was provided by the church pastor Unaeus, and for further support turned to his land in Böle. For almost 50 years, inhabitants have called this “isi orinist” (today John Norman’s home). In this musical home the organ was played, as well as the cello and violin.243

A mantal was originally the unit of land belonging to a single person, but of no specific area. In later generations, the mantals were often subdivided into fractions, as is the case here. The parishoners were unable to deliver a piece of land an eighth the size of what would have earlier been a family’s place.

I have a picture of the house. It is modest but respectable and well-kept.

The address 9 Böle goes back through the generations at least to the mid-16th century (see listings 296-7; 577; 592; 73,936). I am not sure if the address is as specific as a single mantal or refers to a somewhat larger area.