The Story of the Trapp Family Singers

by Maria Augusta Trapp

  Up and down we went in the State of Vermont. We saw “a valley of your own,” which was highly recommended by one of the agents; but we would have to be Indians, or Eskimos in the winter, since the whole valley was densely wooded, but didn’t even contain a cottage. Then we were shown the “dream castle,” an old stone foundation next to which stood a little farm house. As it was too much “dream” and too little “castle,” we declined it. A “spacious log cabin nestled in woodland” was offered us. This turned out to be an old shack, uninhabited for ten years, at least a mile away from the nearest road. We saw a “charming hilltop farm” with a “sweeping mountain view.” This looked fine until we discovered by chance that three months of every year the water supply ran out completely, and water had to be carried by hand from the nearest pump half a mile away. One agent heartily recommended a “century-old residence with quaint features,” which with “imagination plus a little paint and fixing” would make an ideal home for us. “Come see what you can do with it!” urged the prospectus. The quaintest feature, besides the heating system, which consisted of one wood stove in the kitchen, was the floor. The ancient boards, sagging everywhere, gave way under me in the dining room, leaving me with a badly twisted ankle for my efforts.

  It is perfectly amazing with what tender expressions a stony pasture can be described, so that you feel ashamed of yourself if you don’t purchase this bargain for the sake of your children and grandchildren.

  We almost bought something near Brattleboro, a terrific number of acres—2,800—of woodland, a road leading through a gorge-like valley with a few houses and sunshine, most probably, between June 10 and 30. We even went so far as to bind the bargain with one hundred dollars. Never did we spend one hundred dollars better than when we lost those acres and got out of the deal. In spite of the thirty-acre lake on that property, Georg shuddered when he thought of the dark, shady location.

  “I want sunshine and plenty of it,” he sighed.

  That settled it.

  Finally, when we had looked at most of the salable “bargains” and couldn’t find what we wanted, we started to hate the mere words “real estate.” The farms in good locations with nice houses were far too expensive, and the ones we could have afforded were in all stages of being run-down. Finally we got quite allergic to the looks of crooked barns, broken-down fences, and stubbly pastures. We gave up.

  One day in August a car stopped outside The Stowe-Away, and in came a gentleman. He took off his straw hat and introduced himself as Mr. Burt from Stowe and sat down. My family was out somewhere, so I was alone for the conversation.

  “Nice day,” Mr. Burt started.

  “Very nice,” I agreed. “Wonderful haying weather. How is the haying going?”

  “All right, I guess.”

  Silence.

  “Are there many tourists in Stowe?” I didn’t really want to know, but I had to say something.

  “Not too many.”

  Silence.

  “It must be beautiful up here in winter.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Burt agreed, “it is.”

  So far, he had rested his arms on his knees and turned his hat one way, on and on. Both of us were watching it in fascination. Now he changed the hat’s direction, turning it the other way, and said:

  “Are you singing much these days?”

  “No,” I said, “we are taking it easy. This is our first vacation in America.”

  “Oh.”

  Silence.

  What in the world could I say next?

  Then something dawned on me.

  “Where do you want us to sing, Mr. Burt?”

  The hat stopped twirling.

  “Yes,” he said, “that’s it.” He sounded genuinely relieved. “That’s what I really came for. You see, last week the Army took over a former C.C.C. camp outside of Stowe, and we have been asked to entertain the boys; so we thought of you people and wondered whether you would give them some kind of a performance.”

  “But surely, gladly. When?”

  The date was fixed for next Saturday, and we would be called for in Army jeeps.

  “You mean one of those brand-new cars which can do all kinds of tricks? We read about them in the Reader’s Digest.”

  The next Saturday two Army jeeps stopped in front of the house, and a Captain Hunt and another officer drove us over Barrows Road through an enchanting little valley to the camp. What a nice place for a camp! The barracks stood together on a flat spot on top, and there was something which looked almost like an amphitheatre with a few more barracks below. Soldiers everywhere. We sang from the bottom of the amphitheatre, which was a former gravel pit overgrown with green, and the soldiers sat all over the slopes. The stars came out, and the music sounded more beautiful than in any concert hall in the world.

  After the concert we were asked whether we could sing a Mass for the soldiers. Next Sunday was to be our last Sunday in Vermont. We agreed readily to come. Again the jeeps came to get us and drove us through the valley. This time it was morning, and even more beautiful. It was one of those wonderful, warm days in the fall with an incredibly blue sky. On the way back Georg asked the driver to stop for a moment.

  Then he pointed up to the last sunny slope and said with emphasis:

  “A place like this; that’s where I’d be happy.”

  And five days later that sunny slope, which belonged to a large farm, was our own.

  The very next morning a man knocked at our door.

  “I heard you want to buy a farm,” he said. “I want to sell mine. Why don’t you have a look?”

  Although we had closed the chapter and given up the idea, there couldn’t be any harm in looking at one more place, and in the afternoon we drove behind the farmer, who showed the way. We drove as far as the little white schoolhouse, and there was a sign: “Luce Hill.” That’s where we branched off. Up and up it went, and the farther up we went, the more beautiful became the view. Then we were on top of the hill; and when we got out of the cars, we knew: this is the place. What a panorama! Three valleys lay open before us, and as many as nine mountain ranges we could count stretching into the blue distance. We had been in all forty-eight States; we had stood on many a top of the Green, White, Blue, Smoky, and Rocky Mountains; and in Vermont we had traveled up and down the State and seen many hills and dales, but never had we come across anything like this.

  For a while we stood in silent admiration, until Georg whispered into my ear:

  “For heaven’s sake, look at the buildings!”

  A quick glance told me that they were “in fair repair,” which didn’t disturb me the slightest bit.

  “Oh, Georg,” I exclaimed, and my arms were around his neck, never minding the farmer and his numerous family. “We can build a house and barns, but we can never build a view like this!”

  “We shall let you know in three days,” Georg said to the owner, and we drove back to The Stowe-Away.

  For all of us it had been love at first sight, and Georg’s remarks about the buildings I couldn’t take too seriously. After all, hadn’t he liked the location first? That was his “sunny slope.” I understood perfectly, however, that he felt how serious the step was when we were about to settle down. The place would become our home, and we should never have to regret that signature.

  The only thing to do was pray; only thus would we find out the Will of God. We turned an empty room into a chapel. We put up a crucifix on the wall, and two candles were lit, and one member of the family was there for an hour at a time. We all took turns for three days and three nights. Then we had one more meeting, all of us together, the family and Father Wasner, and in perfect peace and unison we all said the same: we hadn’t found the place, but the place had found us.

  On Thursday we met at the Town Clerk’s office and solemnly received the deed, all of us together, as a joint possession. Then we went up our hill. Rupert and Werner felled two trees from our woods and made a Cross twelve feet high. This they carried up to the highest point o
n the hill behind the house, and we all followed, singing and praying. On the top the Cross was planted, while we sang a hymn of thanksgiving. In California we had learned that the Spanish missionaries had thus taken possession of every new spot on the coast.

  One has to have lost a home oneself to understand and appreciate what the words mean: “home sweet home.”

  XII A New Chapter

  ONCE MORE we set out on the concert tour to the West Coast; but this time everything was different; we owned a farm! Now we had a place where we belonged; we also had pictures which we carried around with us. In the joy of our heart, we had to show them to everybody. We still have those pictures, and when I look at them now, I understand fully why a really good friend of ours in the Middle West, after careful study, said slowly and deliberately:

  “I hope you like that place.”

  The view, which is what we really had bought, didn’t come out on the photos very well, and what did come out was not too dazzling. But it was with us as with parents of a newborn baby. In pride and exultation it is shown around: “Isn’t it lovely?” No, it isn’t. That red-faced little dwarf isn’t lovely at all, but none of the friends has the heart to say so aloud. The same was the case with our friends who had not been up on Luce Hill on that glorious September day and were confronted with only the pictures of a shabby little house and crooked barns. But they all wanted to share our enthusiasm, and bravely broke out in those exclamations which we wanted to hear.

  One of the greatest things in human life is the ability to make plans. Even if they never come true—the joy of anticipation is irrevocably yours. That way one can live many more than just one life.

  While riding in the bus on the way out west, this was our royal occupation. As the neighboring farm had proved to be a terrific bargain when it was offered to us for sale, we had “bought” it, too, and now owned almost seven hundred acres. And what were we going to do with them?

  Vermont is a dairy country. The most obvious thing for us would be to go into the dairy business and build—eventually—a big barn for a hundred and fifty cows, which our place could feed, as people had assured us. The first thing which we would have to decide was: which breed of cows.

  “Our neighbor at the foot of the hill has Jerseys,” said Hedwig. “They look lovely, just like deer; and a few of the best farms around Stowe have Jerseys, too. They say the milk looks almost like orange juice, just yellow with butter fat.”

  “Yes, but I have heard that Jerseys suffer a great deal from diseases. Ayrshires are supposed to be much more hardy, especially for a hill farm,” said Agathe.

  “Why not Holsteins?” came in Martina. “They are twice as large as your lovely Jerseys. Mr. H. told me his cows give an average of fifty to sixty pounds a day, which makes about $2, times 150, makes $300 a day, $9,000 a month, and $108,000 a year!”

  “And how much do those elephants eat?” asked Maria. “I was just reading here,” and she pointed to one of the U. S. government pamphlets on agriculture, “that the Brown Swiss are comparatively new in America, have practically no disease, don’t eat so much as the Holsteins but give the same amount of milk, are very hardy…”

  “But they are twice as expensive,” said her father.

  “Last year you sent us post cards from the West, huge herds of cows with such funny faces—a white strip down the nose. Why not those?” Lorli wanted to know.

  “Or the other ones,” said Illi, “the dark black ones.”

  “Hereford and Angus seem to be westerners. I haven’t seen them anywhere around Stowe,” said Georg.

  This conversation was going on in the Cadillac. In the Lincoln they were discovering meanwhile that Vermont fifty years ago had been the wheat granary of the East, and in addition the sheep country. Government pamphlets went from hand to hand, and the discussion centered around different breeds of sheep.

  Whenever the inhabitants of the two cars met, at meals, for instance, or after the concerts, there was always a very spirited exchange of ideas on the one and main topic: the farm.

  “How many men shall we need to work?”

  That important question was raised one day. Father Wasner had been born and raised on a farm, and he knew more about farming than any of us.

  “Ours was a good-sized farm,” he said, “about a hundred and twenty acres. We had seven people and three teams all year round, besides my father and brother; and during haying and harvesting, we had fifteen.”

  “Then,” I mused, “I guess with twenty-five or thirty hands and five teams around the farm we should be able to do it.”

  “No, I don’t think they do things that way in America,” said Georg, who had read more than we. “Look at this.”

  He also had some pamphlets from the Department of Agriculture—on farm machinery. And now our vocabulary was enriched by words such as: “side delivery rake,” “hay loader,” “seeder,” “corn planter,” “blower,” “manure spreader,” and “tractor.”

  “That way we’ll do it perhaps with three men and one team.”

  These words merely “increased our word power.” At that time they didn’t mean a thing to us, since in our day those things didn’t exist in Austria. Very few individuals, indeed, owned seven hundred acres. In the whole neighborhood there was one single silo, and that had turned into a point of sightseeing. Tractors were a great rarity and much talked about.

  With altogether new interest we looked at the countryside as we crossed the Middle West; and the longer we looked, the less we liked it. Miles and miles and miles of corn fields or wheat fields—always the same crop. Later we came into the ranch country, and there were thousands of acres of pasture land; and when we were in California again, we passed through orchards with thousands of apple, or cherry, or orange trees. But it was always “or” never “and.” Now we saw clearly the difference. At home in Austria a farm was a self-sustaining, independent unit. You tried to grow a little bit of everything: for the people and for the animals, and a little more than enough to sell to buy the few items you couldn’t grow, such as coffee, tobacco, and cotton material. The wool of your own sheep was spun at home and woven or knitted. The pigs supplied you with smoked meat for the whole year, and lard, besides. For sweetness you had your honey. The flax of the fields provided all the linen. Eventually you slaughtered some beef cattle or a sheep or some geese, ducks, or chickens, to get variety in your menu. In the orchard behind the house you had cherry, apple, and pear trees, and in a protected corner, even some peaches and grapevines. In the vegetable garden was a berry corner for strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, and currants. From your own rye you baked that delicious black bread, and you always kept enough grain for next year’s seed. That way, each farmer on his homestead was an independent little king in his own realm. And after we had weighed dairy farming against wheat raising, or sheep breeding, or fruit growing, we all settled contentedly on doing neither one of the “or’s,” but we wanted a little bit of everything as it was at home. Each one of us chose right there and then a favorite department: Martina, the pigs; Johanna, the sheep; Hedwig, the cows; Maria, the garden; Agathe, the bees; Georg, the machinery; Father Wasner, the orchard; and I, the horses.

  This choice was made on the edge of the desert at Death Valley, entering California. We were eating in a nice western-looking inn, and our spirits were animated. All of a sudden I stopped and looked at the boys.

  “And how about you?” I exclaimed. “What’s the matter? What do you choose?”

  There was a moment of hesitation, and then Rupert said:

  “Mother, we have to tell you: Werner and I received a letter from the Draft Board today. We have to be ready to be called.”

  Deep silence followed these words. What each one of us had secretly dreaded, now had happened. I looked across at Georg; he was studying the pattern of the tablecloth.

  A cloud had passed over the sun of our happiness. For a short while we had forgotten that there was raging the most cruel war in history. We
had become farmers in spirit, and farm work means raising, bringing forth; not destroying and annihilating. Now we had been brought back to the present day with brutal force.

  In Los Angeles we had to go to register as enemy aliens and had to be fingerprinted. Fingerprinting had so far existed in our minds only in connection with detective stories, and we felt like semicriminals.

  When we stopped at the Grand Canyon on the way back home, I heard somebody whisper behind our back:

  “These are Dutch from the East Indies.”

  “Georg,” I said, “please look at the newspaper. The East Indies must be invaded.” They were.

  That incident reminded us of the time during the war when Hitler was making such fast progress in invading country after country. We in our quaint costumes attracted attention wherever we went. Upon hearing that we were refugees, people immediately associated us with yesterday’s invasion. Alternately, we were thought to be Danes, Norwegians, Poles, Croatians, or French.

  One day, back in New York it happened that in an overcrowded cafeteria I couldn’t find a seat. I tried to balance my tray and eat standing up. Suddenly a lady rose from her seat, silently took my tray out of my hands, indicated her vacant seat, cut the meat for me, and motioned me, still silently, to eat. Deeply embarrassed, I tried to gulp the food down at super-speed. With cheeks still full, I hastily got up and said: