NEW SWEDEN – Ralph Ostlund already is looking forward to getting into shape for skiing next winter, even though he recently spent a month in the hospital for arsenic poisoning.

One of 16 victims of the poisoning that took place in April at a New Sweden church, Ostlund, 80, stayed with his daughter in Bangor for nearly one month after leaving Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.

Home now, he still is recuperating. On Thursday, he was at his therapy session at Cary Medical Center in Caribou.

“I’m getting along pretty good, staying alone, taking care of myself,” Ostlund said Thursday afternoon. “I’m looking to get into shape to do some more skiing next winter.

“Things are looking up for me,” he said. “It’s going to be a while yet before I am back full strength.

Two months after church members who drank arsenic-laced coffee were stricken at a Sunday social at the Gustaf Adolph Evangelical Lutheran Church, the quiet life has returned to the small northern Maine town that suddenly was thrown into the international spotlight after April 27.

Local people still wonder about the final outcome of the investigation into the country’s largest-ever arsenic poisoning incident.

Police are continuing their investigation, but with only two Maine State Police detectives, down from a dozen.

On April 27, 16 parishioners were poisoned at a social gathering after Sunday morning services. One man died and 15 others were hospitalized, two of them for more than one month.

Walter Reid Morrill, 78, a church elder who had had cardiac bypass surgery just a few months earlier, died within 24 hours of being poisoned. Five days later, Daniel Bondeson, 53, a nursing home worker and a part-time teacher and farmer, took his own life. He was linked by police to the poisonings.

Police still believe more than one person was involved in the incident, but no arrests have been made and none are imminent.

They have suggested that the poisoning was the result of a church controversy.

Only one of the 16 victims, Lester Beaupreof New Sweden, was hospitalized longer than Ostlund.

Beaupre said Thursday that he is looking forward to the future, even though he still thinks about what happened on April 27.

“Of course, I wonder,” he said. “I wonder every day about what happened, and I guess I will always wonder.”

Beaupre was back home in time to take part in the town’s Midsommar Festival last weekend. He said he has been on the go since he came home.Overall, not much new is happening on the investigative front.

Lt. Dennis Appleton, head of the Maine State Police Criminal Investigation Division III, said Thursday, “It’s still a very active investigation, even though we have nowhere near the people we had on it at the beginning. We still have a couple of men putting in a healthy chunk of their week in the investigation.

“We are still as convinced as ever that there may be someone else involved,” he continued. “We still stand by our statements of the past.”

Within a couple days of Bondeson’s death from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said there was information leading them to believe Bondeson had not acted alone. The investigation even took state police to Massachusetts, where Bondeson’s sister, Norma Bondeson, lived.

Appleton said investigators still are awaiting a report from FBI profilers. Although Appleton has spoken with them, he has not yet received a written report from them.

Investigators also are waiting on laboratory reports. While Appleton does not believe the reports will “solve the case” specifically, investigators want to know what the forensic reports will show.

“We are plugging away at the drudgery of police work, reviewing all of our information,” he said. “This case file is the largest file in our investigation system.”

“Everyday life has come back,” New Sweden First Selectman Nelson Ketch said this week. “We are a typical small town, and most people here were directly affected by this.

“We are still wondering about it all,” he continued. “Most folks are worried about those who got sick, and what long-term problems they may be left with.”

Ketch said he has been talking with some of the people who were sick, and they say they are doing well. The anxiety of the situation seems to be lessening, even though people wonder what the final results of the investigation will bring.

“Things are picking up, from the way I see it,” he said.

“People are going on with their lives,” Sara Anderson, owner of the town’s Northstar Variety on Route 161, said this week. “I see many of them day in and day out.

“They have not forgotten, but they are not bogged down, and not staying in their homes,” she said. “Still, it’s in their minds, the victims for sure.”

The community was happy that people took the time last week to participate in one of their major holidays and celebrations. Hundreds of people from neighboring towns, downstate and out of state and former residents returned for the weekend.

“Many were people who wanted to wish the community well,” Anderson said.