Another dear friend whom we met in those days was Madame Marion Freschl, a famous voice teacher with a most superior grasp of the problems of the voice. In those critical moments which occur in every singer’s life she always came very efficiently to our help.
Again we were fortunate at this time in beginning an association with Miss Alix Williamson who has since handled our publicity so well.
At that time trouble started in the nursery. How comparatively easy it had been to bring up the older children. Of course, there were stormy times when a little liar had to be punished, or, for instance, when I had my one and only battle with little Martina. That had been soon after my wedding. I had told the three youngest ones, Martina, Johanna, and Hedwig, that they could play any place in the big park whenever they had free time, and with whatever they wanted, except with knives, scissors, and matches.
“And whoever doesn’t obey will get spanked,” I had said.
The very next day I found tiny little Martina with the largest knife we had in the kitchen, carrying it like a bouquet of flowers before her. I took it out of her hand, turned her around for a slap. She departed seriously. Not long afterwards I ran across her dragging the large scissors from the sewing room on a cord behind her on the way to the garden. Again, without saying much, I took the scissors, and Martina was turned around for her reward. Now I was on my guard, and sure enough, I discovered in her little apron the whole kitchen supply of matches, destined to be buried under a tree for the future, as she confessed. Now I took the little sinner upstairs and gave her a good spanking. Not a tear. The serious little face with the tiny frown between the brows lit up when she told me with a genuine sigh of relief:
“You don’t have to worry from now on, Mother. I won’t be disobedient again. I just had to find out whether you really mean it.”
She has kept her word.
But now after all these years there was real trouble brewing: Lorli was becoming the naughtiest little girl in Merion, Philadelphia, and perhaps the whole United States of America. Those few weeks in school had made a little wild Indian of her. Fresh as a monkey, she always had an answer ready, and unfortunately, they were most of the time so unexpectedly witty that one had to be on one’s guard not to laugh out loud. Poor Rosmarie suffered a Purgatory from that sister of hers. Rosmarie was the kindest, mildest, most good-natured soul, and let herself be dominated and tortured by that wild little creature.
Sadly I remembered a scene in my own school days. I wouldn’t have dared even to whisper it in front of Lorli, but I myself had been much worse than she, the very despair of my teachers, full of tricks and mischief. One day the teacher called me out in front of the whole class and solemnly pronounced this curse:
“I wish you may sometime have a daughter exactly like you. Sit down.”
For a little while, I remember, Lorli had attended a kindergarten in Salzburg. There she had made the fatal acquaintance of scissors and learned what wonderful patterns you can cut out of a folded piece of paper. The first item on which she tried it was her beautiful, new, fluffy pink blanket. I admonished her earnestly never to do that again. She promised, and must have meant, never again on a blanket, because the next victim was one of the precious brocade curtains in the living room. Now she was told that under no circumstances might those scissors cut anything which was not strictly her private property. She promised, and looked, oh, so sincere! Her left hand took a firm grip on the curls above her forehead, and before I could cry “no,” the scissors had cut what was strictly her own. But she hadn’t disobeyed.
When she started going to school, she never came home. Hours passed every day, and I got worried. So I explained to her she must always keep going and never stop. The very next day I was waiting again, and finally I went all the way into town to find her walking up and down, chatting cheerily with a policeman, who said to me when I took hold of my daughter:
“Your little girl kept me very nice company. She said I should walk up and down with her because she wasn’t supposed to stop, and she told me all about her home.”
That I could believe.
But now she had new ideas. One day I found her posing before a mirror, making lovely faces.
“Mother,” the little angel said, “where do I have my complexion? Patsy’s mother said I have such a lovely one. Do you really think I’m pretty? A girl from the twelfth grade said I’m the prettiest girl in school. Can you show me where the sparkle is in my eyes?”
“Oh, oh!” I thought.
The same evening we were mending stockings near the fireplace, and I seemed to have forgotten Lorli’s presence in the room.
“It’s really a pity,” I said to Agathe, “that beautiful babies usually grow to be ugly little ducklings. Poor Lorli! What a horse-face she’s got now, and what a pretty little thing she was in Salzburg! Too bad.”
It did the trick.
Long afterwards, when Lorli was to appear for the first time on the stage, she came and said:
“Honestly, Mother, I’m so sorry that I’m spoiling the picture on the stage, but I’ll try to play extra well to make up for my looks.”
For years she had avoided even looking into a mirror. She came to one of her sisters to part her hair.
One of her weak spots at that crucial time was her nibbling at everything edible she could get hold of between meals. Outside of Christmas, Easter, or birthdays, there were no candies around, and one night while we were out singing with the Drinkers, Lorli simply couldn’t withstand the temptation to look for something in the line of sweets. The most thorough raid all through the house didn’t produce a single candy. Finally, she landed in Father Wasner’s room, which was strictly forbidden to begin with, and there she found in a drawer a little box with hosts to be used for Holy Mass, and she ate them all! On that evening a little girl wept herself into slumber after the most awful spanking of her life, and, oh cruel fate, no birthday celebration the next day. For a while there was hardly a day without a spanking, which was the most awful moment of the day for Rosmarie, who cried bitterly, whereas the proud little sinner pretended not to mind. How many times in later years has Lorli flung her arms around her mother’s neck, thanking her with all her heart for the great lessons of discipline and self-control.
And one day something else happened. Johannes had strewn all his toys all over the living room floor, and when it was time for lunch, I said casually:
“Now, Johannes, pick up your toys.”
Well, lo and behold, the little fifteen-months-old pulled himself up to his full height, looked right into my eyes, and said:
“No.”
“Oh, yes,” I assured him.
“Oh, no,” he answered.
And “yes” and “no” went back and forth several more times, and then it had to be.
After these first spanks of his young life, he stamped his fat little foot and said crossly:
“No, no, no!”
So the first spanks were followed by the second, and by the third. All of a sudden the tear-stained little face brightened. He climbed on my lap, put his soft little arms around my neck, whispered sweetly into my ear, “Yes,” curled up, and was fast asleep. That experience lasted him for many years.
This is one of the most subtle moments in bringing up children, I guess: to sense when to spank and when not. Some of the dear little ones do need it, and no substitute will do. Others, however, must never be touched harshly. With Lorli’s sister it was enough to say reproachfully: “But Illil” (our nickname for Rosmarie) and the sensitive little soul dissolved into a lake of tears. The old saying: “Spare the rod and spoil the child” seems like a translation of the Bible: “Who loves his son does not spare the rod.” It is to be hoped that the world will soon turn away from its experiment in the realm of progressive education where poor, unhappy children always have to do what they want; the young will is then crippled by its own whims.
One morning in early May Father Wasner in his office as financier, remarked at breakfast:
“We have not quite fifty dollars left in the bank.”
There were still four months to the next concert tour, and one thing was sure; fifty dollars wouldn’t get us to September. Next thing: family council. Recently we had seen an exhibition of Pennsylvania Dutch handicraft, which had been very interesting, and we had noticed that the items sold fast. As there was nothing and nobody to sing for at that moment, the only other suggestion we could think of was: “Let’s have a handicraft exhibit, too.”
The different Christmas and birthday presents had shown that there seemed to be talent for handicrafts in the family. Let’s find out. The next two weeks were devoted to the most concentrated work in leather, clay, wood, linoleum, paint, and silver. At one of the Drinker singing parties we had learned to know the sisters Smith, one of whom was a sculptor. Eleanor and May became the most faithful and devoted helpers now. Where to get the materials downtown; where to have the clay baked; how to find a place for the exhibition; how to advertise it; they helped us with all these most practical factors. The exhibition proved such a success with so many orders coming in, that we were seriously advised to repeat it in New York.
Reverend Mother from Ravenhill lent us the station wagon in which the whole Trapp Family Handicraft Exhibit drove to New York. With the children’s furniture, the carpentry work of which had been done by Georg and the painting most successfully by Martina, who showed great skill in peasant art (she was also the creator of lovely trays, wooden bowls, and boxes); really artistic work in clay by Johanna; very original jewelry by Werner; leather work of all kinds by Hedwig; wood carving by Maria; linoleum cuts by Agathe, we felt we had an unusual collection of objects to sell. Rupert and I were the unskilled ones. We did the exhibiting.
Soon there were more orders than time to fill them, and September was reached without our having had to contract more debts.
Now we were well on the way. We had learned that work—whatever it may be—honors you and makes you free. Further, we had found out that as long as you are willing to work, America is still the land of unlimited opportunities. It is up to you to use them. And we had also found out that this was the only way to become American, a part of this nation of pioneers: to be a pioneer yourself.
X The Fly
SEPTEMBER came, and one day a big bus stopped in front of the house on Merion Road. This time it was a red one, the newest type with a motor in the rear. The same bus driver was here again, the old faithful, and started to load. To his great delight, we had decided to take Johannes along with us. He loved the baby dearly and rearranged the bus for him.
Tante Lene and Martha would stay behind with the little girls. Martha was a close school friend of our Maria from Salzburg. She had been with us in Sweden as a baby sitter to take care of young Johannes during our lengthy rehearsals. When the war broke out, she couldn’t return home, but came along with us to America.
By then we had found out that school can be taken care of at home, but we still thought that it was bound to a house. Later we would learn that it can very well take place on wheels.
A friend of the family had offered to come along and help us take care of Johannes while we were rehearsing, and during concerts.
How altogether different was this farewell from the other years! The first time we had had to lug around all our belongings with us and deposit the children in a strange boarding school; the second year we could leave them in the house of friends, and a corner of their attic housed part of our goods; this time, however, we left them in our own home, surrounded by friends who would keep an eye on things. Slowly, slowly, the tree with the ten branches which had been plucked out by the roots and taken across the ocean into a new soil, started to root again. It is always an experiment to transplant a full-grown tree. One doesn’t know whether the roots will take to the strange soil. What a relief when it shows that they do!
After a tearful farewell we went first to New York—Hotel Wellington, of course! This year the carpets were red and the uniforms, bright frog-green. The next day we were to give a concert in a New York college, and Mr. Schang would be present. This was the first concert under his management, and the first one of a tour of sixty-five, which would lead us from coast to coast. What an important and exciting moment!
F. C. Schang was no stranger to us any more. We had seen him several times in his office, and he had also visited us in Merion. Out of his vast experience in the concert business he had given us the most valuable advice in building up new programs which would contain something for everybody, for the housewife in Michigan, the farmer in Kansas, the rancher out west as well as for the music scholar. Our programs in the past had been mostly in Latin and German. Now we added English numbers. Among the English madrigals and folk songs we found some wonderful pieces like “Sweet Honey-Sucking Bees,” “Early One Morning,” and “Just as the Tide was Flowing” and among the old American folk songs we found hidden treasures. Our program now had five parts: first, sacred music, selections from the ancient masters from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; second, music played on the ancient instruments: recorders, viola da gamba, spinet; third, madrigals and ballads; fourth, Austrian folk songs and mountain calls; fifth, English and American folk songs.
I had admired Mr. Schang many times for his unique ability to master every situation. It was perfectly incredible how he could always say the only thing which should be said at the moment. How finely he could choose the nuance of what to say, to whom and when. Whether it was Grace Moore or Lily Pons, the girls and I, or Mr. Henry S. Drinker, I was always stunned by the finesse he displayed on each occasion.
Now we were at the college, and Sister Mary Rose, a saintly nun, was in charge of the concert; I felt genuine curiosity creeping up within me: what would Mr. Schang do to make Sister Mary Rose happy? He couldn’t kiss her hand, he couldn’t tell her how much he liked her gown—what was he going to say? This would be his first meeting with a nun.
There he was.
“Sister Mary Rose, may I introduce Mr. Schang, our manager?” A few nice words went back and forth, and look—here we go!
In a voice vibrating with genuine admiration, F. C. uttered the weighty words:
“Sister Mary Rose, in all my life I have never heard such perfect diction!”
We got a return date.
This concert was a new experience. We tried very hard to put into practice the very good admonitions our new manager gave us before the concert:
“Don’t be formal; smile, relax, forget about the audience. Simply sing for the fun of singing. Be at ease; don’t look so pained; relax, don’t worry.”
But if you have to try hard to be informal, if you have to force yourself to look relaxed, that to begin with is not the real thing. The worst of it was that he was in the audience; he, the one person among all the people of the U.S.A. whom we wanted most to please and satisfy. But all the same, the concert turned out to be very successful. Mr. Schang smiled all over, congratulated us time and again on the great difference in our stage appearance.
But the next day when he came to the Wellington to say good-bye, as the bus was waiting outside all ready to take us to the West Coast, he added:
“There is something you are lacking, and I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is. There is something between you and the audience; but I trust, I just know, that if you try hard, you will find what it is.”
That word “lacking” stuck with us. From now on we watched for what we should do; most critically so. After every concert we sat together and discussed it. Was it the coming and going, the standing, the smiling and bowing? Georg, our most faithful helper and companion in the concert business, sat in the first row every evening and added his observations. But all along, we knew we still hadn’t found it. The concerts were good, very good; the people liked them and said so; but…
We were heading for Los Angeles and driving on Highway 66. The great highlight of this trip was for us our first meeting with the Indians, the real Indians, abo
ut whom we had read so much in Europe. We had all been brought up on Carl May, a German, who had written many books about those great heroes of the Wild West. His books were devoured by every boy, and also by many a girl, and every one of us had once cried over Winnetou, the great chief of the Apaches. And now we would meet his blood brothers. Our hearts beat higher long before we came to New Mexico; but finally it said on the map: “Pueblo Laguna,” and I was ready with cameras for both moving and still pictures.
Finally I said to the driver: “When is Pueblo Laguna coming?”
He answered casually: “Oh, we passed it a good ten minutes ago. Why?”
“Passed it? The Indians? Our first Indians? Just passed it like that?”
I was so disappointed, I could have cried. I went back to the very rear of the bus to hide my sentiments. But above the driver’s seat was a big mirror, and the driver’s eye could see easily what was going on within me. He was sincerely sorry. Never in his life had he thought that anyone could want to take pictures of Indians, something so unprogressive; but, well, she took pictures of Negroes, too, didn’t she? He turned the bus around, and back we went to Pueblo Laguna and met our first Indians, nice, friendly people, who looked at us as curiously as we at them. They had never seen Austrians in their national costume, either. We admired their beautiful church, bought some of their quaint pottery, and sang a few Austrian folk songs for them, and I was permitted to take pictures, with hands trembling with excitement. One was a picture of baby Johannes with his white-blond curls, embracing a little Indian boy of his own age with straight, bluish-black hair. There was something about the Indians which moved us deeply that first time, and every other time, we met them, something so dignified and so sad. A strange sensation of sympathy and understanding passed back and forth between us. Was it that we had once shared their own fate of being exiles in our own home? From then on, we always went out of our way to meet the Indians again, and to spend as much time as we could with them.
The Story of the Trapp Family Singers Page 21
