Returning the Sword: New Book Chronicles Local Man’s Gift to Japanese Family

LANESBORO—Minnesota author Caren Stelson marked the release of her newest picture book by returning to the town where it, the book, all began – to recount for friends, families and students the story and extraordinary local connections behind Returning the Sword.

“The first time I drove up the gravel driveway to Orval Amdahl’s Lanesboro home, I had no idea what story was waiting for me,” she tells audiences. As it turns out, the story, as the book’s subtitle states, is about “how a Japanese sword of war became a symbol of friendship and peace.”

The ‘story behind the story’ of Stelson’s book, Returning the Sword, began while she was working on another book. She had just returned home to Minnesota after a visit to Nagasaki, Japan where she’d been interviewing Sachiko Yasai, a survivor of the Nagasaki atomic bombing. 

“Sachiko and I were working together so I could write a book about her survival, healing and arc to peace for a young adult audience.” Sachiko had described what it was like as a small child to see American soldiers arriving in Nagasaki as an occupying army.” 

Author Caren Stelson introduced her new picture book, Returning the Sword, to those gathered at Lanesboro’s Sons of Norway lodge on the occasion of the book’s October 2025 public release. (Photo by John Gaddo)

“That, in turn, sparked a burning question on my part,” Stelson says. She wondered, “what was the experience like for American soldiers as part of this story?” 

Her curiosity led her to doing WWII oral history research at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul. “I went to the library and typed in Nagasaki. One name popped up – Orval Amdahl.”

“At the time Orval was ninety-three,” she continues. “I called him the next day.” Subsequently, she visited him at his home in Lanesboro.

Orval Amdahl dressed in his American Legion uniform: His dream was to return this Japanese Sword of War to its family of origin in Japan. (Photo courtesy of CarenStelson.com)

 “I was interested in Orval’s memories of his time in Nagasaki . . . when in mid-sentence he said, ‘Can I show you something?’ Orval brought down a Japanese sword, a war souvenir, from his closet.”

With a clear voice, he said he wanted to give this sword back ‘in peace, with honor’. Instantly, I knew I was in another story,” Stelson says.

Making connections

During a recent presentation at Lanesboro’s Sons of Norway lodge, Stelson explained that Orval had been on a U.S. naval ship that was first into the Nagasaki Harbor after Japan surrendered.

“During my interview with him he showed me the sword that he’d brought back home as a war ‘souvenir.’ He told me he had been oiling the sword for 67 years waiting to find a way to return the sword to its rightful owners.” 

It took some research on her part to connect the dots between the sword’s current ‘home’ in Lanesboro and the Japanese family who Amdahl felt was the rightful owner. 

With help from the Nagasaki-St. Paul Sister City Committee and clues about the original Nagasaki owner written in Japanese characters on a tag tied to the sword, Stetson eventually connected with the Motomura family and, in 2013, proudly witnessed the return of the sword from Amdahl to the Motomuras during a public ceremony in St. Paul.

A moment of reunion as Orval Amdahl returns a WWII ‘souvenir’ sword to the Motomura family in 2013. (Photo by Kyle Whitney)

“The weekend of the ‘Return of the Sword’ and the arrival of Motomura family happened to fall on the United Nation’s International Day of Peace, September 21, 2013, another serendipitous moment when energy flowed to its inevitable desired ending,” Stelson says. 

“The day of the ceremony at Como Park’s auditorium in St. Paul, the three hundred or so people in the audience witnessed what peace could look like when hearts open to receive an honest desire to end a war and build a friendship.”

Stories intersect

Amdahl’s story, and Stelson, have another thing in common – part of the special connection she had with Amdahl was that she lived in Lanesboro at the time she first put pen to paper. 

“With the return of Orval’s sword to the Motomura family, my husband Kim and I fell in love with Lanesboro and the community.” They ended up buying a seasonal home in Lanesboro and for ten years “enjoyed the friendships we made all because of a sword and a veteran’s search for peace.” More recently, Stelson and her husband have lived in the Twin Cities.

“It was 13 years ago Orval’s story piqued my curiosity,” she told a nearly standing-room-only audience gathered in October at Lanesboro’s Sons of Norway lodge. “Orval’s story of the sword is definitely a Lanesboro legacy.”

Among the 50+ people gathered to hear the story of Orval Amdahl and Caren Stelson’s book, Returning the Sword, were friends, neighbors and members of the Orval and Marie Amdahl family – many of whom shared their own stories of ‘dad’, ‘grandpa’ and ‘neighbor’. Pictured above (left to right) are Diane Amdahl, wife of Ron Amdahl, eldest son of Orval and Marie; Karyl Amdahl Tammel, Orval and Marie’s youngest daughter; and Lori Harrington, granddaughter of Orval and Marie. (Photo by John Gaddo)

In conjunction with her visit and public presentation, Stelson had also done a Lanesboro Public Schools student program.

“It was an honor to bring the picture book to an audience of Orval’s family and friends, and to share it with the fourth-fifth-and sixth graders at the Lanesboro elementary school; Returning the Sword is Lanesboro’s youngest generation’s legacy story, too,” she says.

“Without the courage of Orval and the Tadahiro Motomura family, Lanesboro, the Minnesota History Center, and the St. Paul-Nagasaki Sister City Committee,” Stelson concludes, “Orval Amdahl’s story might still be in the History Center’s Oral History Library relatively unnoticed – and the sword could still be in his closet.”  

The Motomura family’s sword is displayed at the 2013 ‘Return of the Sword’ ceremony in St. Paul. (Photo by Kyle Whitney)

A Circle Closed

In Nagasaki, Tadahiro Motomura and his wife read Returning the Sword for the first time on October 10, 2025. (submitted photo)

In October 2025 the Motomura family received its copy of Returning the Sword, bringing yet another chapter of the story to a close.

There’s much more to the story of the sword, its journey to the states and back to Japan – and the man behind it all, Orval Amdahl – in Stelson’s Returning the Sword: How a Japanese Sword of War Became a Symbol of Friendship and Peace, available through her website and (soon) locally at Lanesboro Market. 

Returning the Sword was illustrated by Amanda Yoshida and published by Carolrhoda.

Listen to author Caren Stelson read an excerpt from the book in the YouTube video below.