Gunnar was born on January 2 1898 at the farm Sandviken in Hosjö parish, Kopparbergs county. He was the second child of Ludvig Johansson and his wife Lovisa.

The family came from the county of Varmland and the reason why they for the moment lived in Hosjo was that his father Ludvig had a job there as a woodsman. In 1899 the family moved back to Varmlands county as his father bought the farm Mosserudstorp in Alsters parish. The farm was later just called Mosstorp. [Map]  

Gunnar grew up on the farm Mosstorp and became later the owner.

In 1918 he and his sister Olga decided to change his familyname from Johansson to the name Modahl.

On May 15 1919 he started his military service. During the military service he wrote a diary and for September 19 the same year he wrote that he had a surgery of his apendix. On November 24 also in 1919 he had threshed with "electrical power" for the first time.

In the beginning of the 1920th he meet his wife to bee, Ellen Gustafsson, from the farm Säter in the same parish. They met at an outdoor dancing-floor in the southern part of the parish.

On August 8 1925 they met the priest in Alsters parish to ask to
have the banns published. Two months later on October 3 1925 he married Ellen in Alsters church.

Gunnar does not write so much about his marriage in his diary. He
writes as follows: "Ellen and my weddingday".

After the wedding Ellen moved to her husband in Mosstorp. In
Mosstorp were all their four children born, Brita in 1925, Sven in
1927, Tage in 1929 and Marianne in 1932.

Gunnar was very interrested in sports and in his diary, written between January 1925 and March 1933, he often writes about ski-running races both in Ulvsby and in other places where his club Ulvsby IF had attended. Also the matchresults from the bandy-team Karlstad Gota were listed in his diary. If he could not be present at a game he often followed the game on the radio.

His interrest for sports made him very active in the foundation of the club Ulvsby IF in the year 1927. He was the cashier of the club until January 22 1933.

In the beginning of 1933 the Swedish Farmers Association had an campaign in the county of Varmland that every parish should have its own local association. At a meeting in Ulvsby Ordenshus on March 6 in 1933 they formed a local association for Alsters parish and Gunnar became their first president.

Gunnar lived in Mosstorp until he died, on June 5 1933, only 34 years old. He died from pneumonia.

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Copyright © Håkan Bergström, Latest update 2002-02-02