It's a full circle moment today for Guam as a locally-carved ifit walking stick gifted to President Franklin D. Roosevelt returns home after nearly 90 years.  It’s all thanks to a Utah couple who found the historical treasure buried in an abandoned storage unit in Colorado. This walking stick tells the story of Guam’s continued fight for political rights. 

Melvin Won-Pat Borja, Guam Commission on Decolonization executive director said, "It’s not just a stick. It’s what it represents." Carved from ifit, the strongest wood on Guam, this walking stick carries the story of the Chamoru people’s strength– one that may bend but never break. 

Guam Museum curator Dr. Michael Bevacqua added, "We have an amazing treasure, sort of the long movement for self-determination, that has made its way back to Guam."

In 1937, Guam pioneers Francisco Baza Leon Guerrero and B.J. Bordallo carried it to Washington, DC and gifted it, among other presents, to President Roosevelt to fight for Chamoru rights. "This was kind of the last ditch effort to get change because their efforts to get a bill in change for status for the people, or change in status for Guam, had stalled in Congress because of the US Navy at the time, which didn’t want any changes in Guam," explained Dr. Bevacqua.

Nearly 90 years later, the gift has returned home, all thanks to an incredible stroke of luck and the generosity of Utah couple John and Connie Upp. "We’ve had this cane for at least 20, 25 years," John noted. "Believe it or not, I got it out of a storage unit. And I didn't think anything of it, you know. I thought it was cool to look at. I just put it in a closet and didn’t really think of it for years. Then years ago, the Antique Roadshow came."

The Upps purchased an abandoned storage unit in Colorado over two decades ago where they found the historical treasure buried among clothes, a washer and dryer. Although they didn’t know its significance at the time. The mystery even stumping a popular reality TV show that appraises antiques, called The Antique Roadshow. 

"They were extremely interested in it, and I got all the way up to the cameras, but I had no back story," John continued, with Connie adding, "We didn’t know the back story at the time, then we looked at donating it to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Museum."

"I called the museum in New York," said John. "They wanted nothing to do with it. I thought that was very odd."

But every so often, Connie would investigate online where the walking stick came from. She would soon find Dr. Bevacqua’s article talking about the missing gifts on a local newspaper. "And I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, I think we have the walking stick.’ So I reached out to him, and that’s how we all came together," she said.

US presidents are typically not allowed to keep gifts after they leave office. It’s unclear how the cane got to Colorado, but clearly it was found by the right people. "It’s our pleasure and our honor to give this to you. It belongs to the people of Guam," said John. "I was just the caretaker."

The walking stick will be displayed at an exhibit being developed by the Guam Museum and the Guam Commission on Decolonization next year. 

For the time being, its return home is a reminder of Guam’s ongoing journey of self-determination with Won-Pat Borja saying, "I hope that our people can connect in this way and really appreciate what our leaders before us have done to get us to this stage. The fight is far from over. It’s our responsibility to carry that on until the job is done."