The Story of the Trapp Family Singers

by Maria Augusta Trapp

  What a great joy and satisfaction it was when the campers became so enthusiastic about everything that they didn’t want to wait a whole year until they could meet again. They founded the Stowe Singers, an alumni group of people who would meet once a month to sing and play the recorder together. There was a chapter in Boston, in New York, and later also in Montreal.

  Funny things happened at times in the camp; for instance, that one morning when the ladies, sopranos and altos, were singing too loud-oh, much too loud, and Father Wasner, throwing up his arms, implored them:

  “Reduce, ladies, reduce!”

  Or that other time when the whole group of one hundred and twenty people was congregated for the afternoon singing and, while Father Wasner was detained on the telephone, a lady entertained the others with a little cloth monkey, which she made do all kinds of funny tricks. Next to her the concert pianist, Fritz Jahoda, was standing with his little daughter, Eleanor, four years old. Suddenly like a silver bell, the child’s voice was ringing through the attentive silence:

  “My Daddy says you look exactly like your monkey!”

  In the camp we had a question box. Towards the end of the Sing Week one evening would be devoted to answering and discussing questions.

  “What do you think about popular music?” was one of the most frequent questions.

  Father Wasner would attend to the questions concerning music. With emphasis he would declare:

  “The mere word ‘popular’ means ‘of the people,’ but these tunes going under that name have nothing at all to do with the people. They are artificially made up by some individual, put on the market with the aid of great publicity, but after two years they are completely forgotten, which only shows how little popular they have been. Neither the words nor the music express the true sentiments of the people. That’s why they have no strength to survive.” And then he always pleaded: “But there is such genuine folk music in this country, real pearls of folk songs throughout the hills and dales of New England and down the Appalachian Mountain range, the cowboy songs in the West and the Negro spirituals in the South. These are the ones which deserve the word ‘popular,’ as they come out of the people, and will live through the centuries.”

  Another much-asked question was:

  “Why does the Trapp Family not wear American clothes?”

  We explained that after the First World War the people in Austria returned to wearing their national costume for economic reasons. It is so much less expensive. You have two or three wool dresses for the winter and three or four cotton ones for the summer, and that lasts you for years and years. You change the white blouses and the colored aprons according to weekdays or holidays. In a family with seven daughters that makes a great difference. When we arrived in America in our national costume, it was for years out of the question to buy what we call “civilian clothes” merely for reasons of money. When it would have been possible, however, we bought a farm instead. Meanwhile, the people got used to our looks. We love our dresses for still another reason besides the money question, and that is that we don’t have to bother with the fashion of the day; whether frog-green or cardinal-red is the latest rage, or which pocketbook matches which color stockings doesn’t bother us in the least. This way no nightmarish evening gowns which suffer from lack of material somewhere can haunt us. It has become an all-around agreeable and practical situation for us, saving money, time, and peace of mind.

  “And what are you going to do about your girls’ marrying? Do they meet young men? Do they have boy friends?” was the third of the most popular questions.

  As far as marrying went, my husband and I had started way back in Europe to say one Hail Mary together every day for each one of our children in order that they might find the right mate in life. As for meeting people—who met people more than we with all those parties and concerts, invitations, and now with the camp? But things were altogether different over here from what they had been in Europe. I had always felt sorry for my girls because they didn’t have that wonderful experience I had had when I was young and in our Catholic Youth Movement. Those large groups of young boys and girls meeting together for singing and folk dancing and long hikes and discussions—what pure joy, what a wonderful thing! Such groups didn’t seem to exist here, and we didn’t care for the “going steady” system. Youth always meets youth in the things they have in common. There is definitely nothing wrong for a girl to be invited by a boy to go to a movie and afterwards sit at a drug store counter over an ice cream soda with two straws—the trouble is only that you’d enjoy so much more going with nine other girls and ten boys, playing volley ball for a couple of hours, then singing to your hearts’ delight motets, madrigals, and folk songs, then doing some of those beautiful ancient folk dances, always all of you together, and ending up perhaps with a short night prayer when the stars are coming out. There are individuals here and there, young boys, young girls, all over the United States, who feel exactly like that, and would call such entertainment ideal. Let’s hope and pray that out of their numbers may come one day a leader to unite them all in a movement which may sweep like a forest fire from coast to coast, burning in its flames all this unhealthy sophistication and filling home and church with a new generation.

  One day seven young men walked into the camp and introduced themselves as students from the University of Montreal. They had heard us in a concert there and wanted to meet us all again. The very moment I saw them, I was startled. In their shorts with their brown knees and rucksacks, they reminded me very strongly of that type of boy I had always wished my girls to know. They happened to come in a desperate moment when we were short of help all around the camp. Would they have time to stay and help us out? Four weeks later when they finally had to go home after their long weekend with us, I realized with a heart most touched and moved how true the word of Our Lord is: “Whatsoever you shall ask the Father in My name, that will I do.” “Whatsoever,” He had said, and He meant it. A mother had asked for the right company for her children, and there it was. Singing, dancing, hiking, camping, discussing, and praying together had filled all the spare time of the last weeks. The young men still come back time and again. They bring their friends. We have met their families, and some of them have stayed on our hill and become members of the larger family.

  It was during the second camp summer, 1945, that one day in August we were notified over the telephone that the war was over. One of us ran down and rang the bell of the chapel, and when all the people had gathered outside on the lawn, we told them. I shall never forget how impressed I was that there was no great shouting, no loud rejoicing, but one by one, they all filed into the chapel to give thanks.

  Then came a telegram that our boys were coming home from Italy. Not only the whole family, but also the whole camp participated in arranging their welcome. These boys had become a sort of symbol for all the others who were expected home now, sooner or later. They had become “our boys.” The large hay wagon was decorated with garlands and flowers. Georg drove the team. Little Johannes was riding ahead on his pony, Popcorn, the girls and I in our feastday best, on the wagon. So we awaited the boys at the edge of the camp property. There they had to get out of the car and into the wagon and, accompanied by all one hundred and twenty camp guests, they rode on in triumph. What a day! Only then I saw how much Georg must have suffered in silence and secret all these anxious years of uncertainty, now when the burden had dropped off his shoulders.

  After the gale of the first joy and happiness of being together again had quieted down, the boys began to make plans. Rupert had put aside his personal plans for so many years, had sacrificed his medical career for the mere necessity of keeping the family going with our concert work; and we had always appreciated it deeply. The war had shown that he was not indispensable in that work any more. Now he could think of getting his American degree as an M.D. He enrolled at the University of Vermont and went to school again.

  Werner, within whom the farmer and the musician were
always fighting, decided to stay in concert work and work on the farm between times.

  Once we had three girls in the camp. They came from a family of ten children. They became such close friends with our girls that they came back the very same summer, together with Father, Mother, and the rest of the family. They were wonderful people, and we had so many things in common! Later somewhere on our concert tour I got a letter from Rupert in which he complained how lonely he was, and wasn’t there anyone I knew whom he could visit.

  “Yes,” I said, “I do know somebody. Why don’t you go and see the Lajoies in Fall River?”

  The next thing was an overjoyed, beamingly happy announcement of his engagement to Henriette Lajoie, which we received while on tour in Seattle. Three cheers for the camp!

  XVIII Trapp Family Austrian Relief, Inc.

  WHEN Joseph, the young son of Jacob, was taken into Egypt, it was against his will. There his beginning was very hard; but after years of much trouble, he succeeded in winning the confidence of the people and their king, and his exile turned into glory. Oftentimes he may have wondered for what this new name and new fame were given him, until one day he learned through travelers that a famine was raging in his homeland, and his people were starving to death. Now he understood, and with the help of his new countrymen, he could use his new power to help his people at home.

  Something similar happened to us. Our beginning in our Egypt was a hard one; we also succeeded in winning the confidence of the people in the new country; and as we built up a new name and new fame, also with us, exile turned into glory. Also we wondered at times what it all meant, until one day we, too, learned that in the old homeland a famine was raging, and the people were starving to death. That was the answer, and most happily could we turn now towards the old home and with the aid of the new countrymen, help the old ones.

  It happened like this.

  In January, 1947, a few days before we had to leave for the West Coast again, a letter arrived, addressed to the Trapp Family Singers. It came from the General of the American Army of Occupation in Austria, and the letter described briefly how terribly hard, how heartrending the suffering of the Austrian people was. And then the letter pleaded: Could the Trapp Family Singers perhaps do something for Austria during their concert tours?

  This was a call, a summons. The letter was read aloud in the family, and a council was held. For this we would have to incorporate. The very next day we went to our capital, Montpelier, and founded the Trapp Family Austrian Relief, Inc. A paper with the seal of the State of Vermont and signed by the Secretary of State testified that this corporation was founded for the purpose of “general help and relief to poor, displaced, and unfortunate people of all nationalities and creeds in the United States and elsewhere,” and that it was “not organized for profit, but is organized exclusively for charitable purposes.” The first meeting of the association was held at the law office of Mr. William N. Theriault. At this meeting by-laws of the corporation were discussed and unanimously adopted, and the board of trustees was duly elected by unanimous vote: President, Georg von Trapp; Vice-president, Maria Augusta von Trapp; Treasurer, Reverend Franz Wasner; plus two additional officers: Secretary, Johanna von Trapp; Clerk, Werner von Trapp. It was also voted that the corporation procure a corporate seal and a rubber stamp.

  Now we were permitted to collect food and clothing and money from coast to coast, and contributions could be deducted from the donor’s income tax. That impressed us. We had been told that big firms, factories, and also individuals made at one time terrifically large contributions to charities for that very reason. We saw ourselves heading for millions in collections. We also had a leaflet printed, which we intended to distribute among the audiences of our concerts. In this we said that our native country, Austria, which so many Americans know and love, was in gravest danger.

  “The country which gave to the world a Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Johann Strauss—a ‘Silent Night’—may perish if we don’t all help together and act right now” that “everybody is informed about conditions in the larger European countries, but hardly anybody knows what is going on in Austria…where her people are just about to give up courage and hope.” We told them that “all over Austria the population suffers from lack of practically everything; especially food, clothing, and fuel. Moreover, thousands of people arrive daily in freight cars at different stations. In Vienna conditions have reached a climax of misery.” Then we said: “Let a social worker tell you about her daily attempts to do the impossible”—and we quoted from actual letters we had received.

  “Our railroad stations have been shattered by bombs. In the ruins live thousands of displaced persons, waiting for trains to take them no one knows where, while hundreds of new ones arrive daily. The dying and the dead, the badly sick with high fever, and little children are lying together between the pieces of the walls. We have no barracks, of course no hospital room, for these poorest of the poor. When the new transports arrive, we usually find little babies with diapers frozen to their emaciated bodies, children dressed in newspaper or old rags kept together by string and pieces of broken wire, and the grownups in all stages of exhaustion and starvation. Usually these people have been in that box car for two weeks or longer without any care. It is absolutely impossible to describe the condition in which they arrive. We would need food, clothing, and first aid materials for thousands, but we hardly have enough for a few hundred.

  “We can’t get needles. We have to rent a needle for a Schilling a day, and woe if you should break it.”

  A university professor of Vienna says in a letter to us: “Personally, I do not mind the hunger so much, but it is so very embarrassing that I cannot get shoe laces and have to walk around without.”

  Then the leaflet went on.

  “The urgent necessity for help is also felt and stressed by the authorities of the U. S. Occupation Army. A high American officer and an American Army Chaplain, in cooperation with local agencies in Austria, sent us recently more than 5,000 addresses of the most needy people.”

  Then we told them that we had founded our corporation and called it the Trapp Family Austrian Relief, Inc., in order that our name might warrant that every cent, every item, would reach its destination: a needy person in Austria. “We have no overhead expenses; we do everything within our family.”

  Then we suggested ways to help Austria:

  1. Send to the Trapp Family Austrian Relief, Inc., Stowe, Vermont, any clothing or non-perishable foodstuffs you can spare. We can use everything: shoelaces, pencils, needles and thread, woolen blankets….

  2. Contribute by donating funds. Make checks payable to the ‘Trapp Family Austrian Relief, Inc.,’ Stowe, Vermont. YOUR DONATION AS A CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTION IS DEDUCTIBLE FROM THE INCOME TAX.

  3. Write to us and ask for addresses of needy families or individuals if you prefer to take care of someone yourself.

  And the leaflet ended:

  “The other day we came across the words of St. Ambrose, one of the greatest men of the fourth century, spoken at the time of a famine: ‘If you know that anybody is hungry or sick, and you have any means at all and do not help, then you will have the responsibility for each one who dies, and for each little child who might be harmed and crippled for life.’ Let us also remember that other word: ‘As long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me.’”

  Thus fortified with stationery with a letterhead, these 100,000 leaflets, a rubber stamp, and the best will not to spare ourselves, we set out for the West Coast.

  We had never done anything like it before, but had we ever run a music camp, or a handicraft exhibition, or thought of giving concerts, or started to build a new house? These big assignments had been hurled at us without allowing even enough time to buy ourselves a handbook to look up the “how to.”

  We tried everything we could think of. Upon arriving in a town, some of us went to the local newspaper to give an interview on starving Austria, while another group di
d the same on the local radio station. From both parties we usually received the greatest understanding and cooperation. At the beginning of the concerts the leaflets were handed out, and during intermission I made an appeal to the audience. I used to say:

  “If you want to avoid making packages, our big blue bus will be tomorrow morning in front of the hotel—” (and then I almost invariably named the wrong hotel, usually the one from the day before—but the people always found the right place).

  The next morning I would stand outside of the bus with a couple of the girls, and—what a touching sight—the people would flock to the bus from all directions, carrying bundles or heaps of clothing in their arms. In smaller country towns pickup trucks would drive up behind the bus and empty their contents on our seats.

  It was in March and somewhere in the Southwest when, after a concert, a lady stopped at the bus, took off her winter coat, and said:

  “It’s my only one, but I don’t need it any more this year. Could you please send it to a teacher over there? I’m a teacher myself.”

  In another place a mother came to see me in the hotel, her face tear-stained, her hands twisting a handkerchief. A few days before she had lost her only daughter in an accident. After she had heard the appeal in last night’s concert, she had worked half the night to collect all the girl’s things. Now she brought them in five big boxes together with a photograph.

  “Look at her,” she said, “and pick me out a girl of her age in Austria, who will write to me.”

  When we came to the border of California, our bus was filled to the brim. At the border we were stopped and asked to show our luggage. Eyes turned to heaven, we silently pointed to the bus: “Look at the luggage!” But law is law, and the officer of the State Board of Health, or whatever it was, had to demand that we empty our warehouse. Rows of tables were arranged there for the travelers’ convenience in showing their suitcases. We drove to the last row of these tables, and while emptying the bus, put everything in bags and boxes. After two hours forty-six large pieces were packed, to the admiration of the staff of that Health Board.