It was in California, in Ventura. Our appeal for Austria was received as never before. The whole town responded. We were asked to come back in a week. Different organizations made clothing drives, and when we came back to collect the contributions, our bus was almost too small. It was packed to the last seat up to the ceiling, and we all had to stand in the aisle as far as Santa Barbara. The very kind Superior of the Franciscan Fathers helped us all he could. On the grounds of the Old Mission the things were packed and shipped in numerous large crates.
Meanwhile, word had gotten around about the relief work which we were combining with our concerts. In the majority of places the people loved and appreciated this idea.
“We live in extraordinary times; that’s why we have to do extraordinary things,” the Mayor of a small town assured us.
But some people objected, and a few objected violently. They insisted that they went to hear a concert and didn’t want to be reminded of the suffering going on in the world. They wanted to relax and not be called upon again. Well—that’s another point of view, and we tried from then on to respect that. We always asked the local people, the ones in charge of the concert, what they thought about this relief work, whether the people would mind it. Sometimes we omitted it, and in the places where we did make our appeal we had no difficulty.
We were perfectly overwhelmed with the way the American people in general reacted to our petition. And this after many years of constant drives. Starting with Finnish and Greek relief, there had been an uninterrupted chain of appeals and campaigns, and on top of that—we came along with our unprofessional relief organization, which consisted of a rubber stamp, a leaflet, a letterhead, and one family which was burning to help. And the miracle repeated itself after every concert. After we had said we needed food and clothing for the starving Austrians and we needed money to send it to them—the people went home, got food and clothing and also some money and, like the widow’s cruse, the big blue bus never went empty.
This happened to be the longest concert tour we ever had. We covered almost thirty thousand miles and gave one hundred and seven performances. On the West Coast we once had seventeen concerts in succession without a break. We had large distances to cover every day, and the days looked like this: For an hour every morning our bus was filled up with gifts for Austria by the townspeople who had been at last night’s concert. When it was high time for us to leave, Rudy, our driver of that year, and incidentally of Austrian parentage himself, would blow the horn furiously.
“Three hundred and fifty miles today!” he would shout.
After heartfelt thanks to the generous givers, we took off, and immediately started on the daily routine. In grocery stores we had asked for empty boxes; in granaries, for empty feed bags. These were now packed systematically by Martina, Hedwig, Rosmarie, and Lorli. When the boxes and bags were filled, they were handed up front to the men. Georg and Werner tied them with double string. Agathe wrote the labels. Johanna and Maria typed lists of contents and letters announcing the parcels. They had found out that if you squeeze a typewriter between your knees at a certain angle, you can write quite well in a moving bus. Meanwhile, I was reading. The letters came in at first by the dozen, but soon by the hundred. When enough finished packages were piled up so that Rudy was all walled in and no traffic between front and rear was possible any more, Rudy used to pull up at the next post office in a small country town, and the postmaster would have a red-letter day in his life: that big blue bus with the word “Chartered” in front and “Trapp Family Singers” on the sides pulling up almost to his window, girls in quaint dresses hopping out, and packages, boxes, bags piling up on his counter—why—that’s like Christmas! They helped weigh the load, and at the end they asked for a thousand 3-cent stamps, and off they went again. The next half hour in the bus was passed in complete silence, everybody licking stamps, pasting them on envelopes—the leaflet was being sent to long lists of addresses. Then the packing was resumed, and after two hours, another pile of twenty or thirty bags was dumped at another post office. And so on.
Reading the hundreds of letters was a hard task. There were letters from people who had seen better times and never in their lives had thought that they would one day have to beg. These letters were usually very long and wordy. After having talked about anything under the sun, music or prewar memories, at the very end came a final remark such as:
“My old wife and I are sitting on the floor of our completely empty room. Even the doors with the door frames and the windows with the window frames have been stolen.” (The climate in an Austrian winter is little different from Vermont.) “We have nothing to eat, nothing to heat with, nothing to wear. Sincerely yours.”
There were the most touching thank-you letters coming in, like this one:
“But the most precious gift was the pound of coffee you sent me. With this I have paid my debts at the shoemaker’s, grocer, milk store; I paid the rent for our room for half a year in advance; I could exchange some flour, jam, and a little butter for it; and some of it I still keep in case some one of us should get sick. How can I ever thank you enough?”
The two Catholic Army Chaplains in Vienna and Salzburg had most generously offered their help at the very beginning. Permission was given for us to ship everything right to them. They handed it over to a small staff of volunteers, who checked on the cases and handed the goods out. In that way it was possible to avoid having the things go to the black market or into undeserving hands. Through the untiring efforts of Colonel Nuwer, Chaplain in Vienna and Major Saunders, Chaplain in Salzburg, help could be brought to the spot in an incredibly short time. Both Fathers, and also General Collins, who had instigated the whole program, became honorary members of the Trapp Family Austrian Relief, Inc. Naturally, we got more mail from Salzburg, as everybody in that countryside knew us personally, and so our dealings with Father Saunders were more extensive. Although we have never seen him, he has become very close to us.
As the trip went on, we got more and more tired, but we learned that one can be happily tired, and the element of happiness can outweigh that of tiredness. When, on the way back, we stopped in St. Paul, the seminary there had collected in the gymnasium hundreds of pairs of shoes, heaps of cassocks, suits, etc.; and on top of it all, the seminarians helped to pack the gifts and send them to the seminary in Salzburg. Finally they took up a collection and even paid the transportation.
Long after we were back from our trip, and on and on during the months, boxes and bags with food and clothing arrived in Stowe. It was more than we could handle every day, and we started to store it in one of the buildings in the camp. When camp started that summer, that long barrack was full to the ceiling with clothing. What we needed was hands, volunteers to help. Like a godsend came a friendly lady one day from Rochester, New York, and simply took over. She recruited volunteers in the morning and another crew in the afternoon. She started in and made sure that every left shoe had its right one. And under the able direction of Mrs. Harper the huge job of packing thirty thousand pounds of material was achieved in a few weeks.
All these are only highlights. We could go on and on quoting names, names of towns, and names of people, who answered the call: “Please help!” Half a year later the big barrack in the camp was full again; but we were absolutely out of funds, and it does cost money to send quantities of goods abroad. What should we do?
In our library at home we had a book about the Leopoldine Society of Austria. That was founded in 1829 and through it the Austrian clergy and people contributed almost a million dollars to Catholic missions in America. There was the idea. We wrote a short letter, explaining our desperate situation: that we had many thousands of pounds of goods and couldn’t send them for lack of money, and then we sent one such letter to every priest in America. The whole family was occupied for two solid weeks in folding these 40,500 letters, putting them into envelopes, and classifying them according to States. Again the miracle happened. Money came flowing in, mostly in one
dollar and five dollar checks, and it amounted to exactly the sum which we needed.
One day a big manila envelope arrived. Through General Collins, public charities in Austria approached us with some five thousand addresses of the most destitute and needy families, and would we or could we find American families who would take over one such address and send food and clothing from time to time?
On our little mimeographing machine we brought out small forms. The first page had the address of the needy family, and in three sentences, the most necessary information. The second page had suggestions for four different packages: (1) “To keep them alive” (2) “To keep them clean and neat” (3) “To keep them warm” (4) “To make them happy.” The third page said: “Detach this side and return to our office with your signature.”
In this way we can keep track whether the oral offer, “Oh give me ten names, I can easily take care of them” happened to come with the high spirits right after a concert, or whether the person really took care of the adopted brother. To date around fourteen thousand families have been placed with generous Americans.
Meanwhile, things became a little better in the old country. The show windows are not empty any more. But the question is, what is harder: not to be able to buy anything because the stores are empty, or not to be able to buy anything because the prices are miles beyond your budget? You can only look at what you cannot get—and that makes a people restless, and that is always dangerous. Compared with what they were two years ago, conditions in Austria are a good deal better; compared with what they were before the war—conditions in Austria are still unbearably hard. Therefore, our small relief association, which has managed with the grace of God to send around three hundred thousand pounds of goods in a little over two years, will continue to work as long as there is anyone left in need of relief and as long as used clothing, old toys, canned goods, etc., find their way to us. Everything which is now sent serves a two-fold purpose: first, it relieves the dire material need; and second, it helps to keep up hope, without which one cannot live.
“Many a one has lost his faith in God because he first lost his faith in man; and again, many a one has found his faith in God again because he met a good man who took the bitterness out of his heart,” says Cardinal Faulhauber.
XIX A Letter
IN THE summer of 1947 there went out to all our friends in America and Europe the following letter:
Dear Friends:
In the many letters arriving daily from far and near, for which we thank you from our hearts, recurs that one anxious question: “But how was that possible—was he sick—just what happened?” And so we want to tell you how it happened. If it were a story, it would have to be called: “A Hero’s Life and a Hero’s Death.” But this is not a story. It is only a sad letter.
Our last concert tour was very long and strenuous. As usual, Georg accompanied us. While driving up the West Coast from Los Angeles to Seattle, I noticed how pale he looked, but he insisted he felt perfectly all right except for a growing tiredness.
“But we’re all tired, you as well as I,” he said.
In Seattle he began to cough. I implored him to fly back to New York to see a doctor who had once helped him wonderfully through bronchitis.
“I’m not sick; I want to stay with you,” he begged.
But the cough got worse, and in Denver, Colorado, we put him on the plane.
When I didn’t get any news from him for five days, I was worried. Unfortunately, just at that time there was a telephone strike all over the United States. I couldn’t call him. I telegraphed to the doctor, and the answer came back:
CAPTAIN VON TRAPP RECOVERING RAPIDLY FROM PNEUMONIA.
When I finally got Georg on the telephone, he said:
“I’m already much better, but here in the hospital it’s terrible. Do come, and then let’s go home. I want to go home.”
But we still had concerts, and another week went by. I received two letters and a report from the doctor, and it all sounded reassuring. But an inner unquiet had gripped me, which would not be soothed away, and finally I flew the last 1,500 miles to New York.
As I entered the hospital room, Georg sat up in bed, stretched both arms wide, and said only: “Come!”
I held him long, pressed close to me, to gain time to pull myself together. My heart almost stood still with fright at the appalling change which in two short weeks had taken place in him. Sunken, hollow cheeks, deep-set eyes circled with dark shadows, bluish lips—his dear face was almost unrecognizable, and he was as thin as a skeleton. A frightful thought rose in my mind: perhaps it was not all so simple as it had sounded in the letters.
But Georg was very happy now.
“Thank heaven you’re here! Now see to it that you get me out of here fast. Then let’s go straight home.”
At his wish I took, right away, the telephone on his night table, called the doctor in charge, and asked when I could take Georg home.
To my amazement, the answer was: “Any time, tomorrow or day after tomorrow.” I should come to the doctor’s office that evening. He wanted to talk to me.
That reassured me again. Surely it couldn’t be so bad if he was permitted that long trip of 330 miles. As soon as we were at home on our mountain, the good air, the heavenly quiet, the spring sunshine, together with his favorite dishes and all that love and care can think of, would soon bring him back to health again.
So we spent a cozy day. I had to tell him every detail of the last two weeks. Then we made plans.
“You know, I have no pain, there is nothing the matter with me any more, only I am so terribly tired and weak.”
These were the last carefree hours of our life together. But we didn’t know it. Or did we suspect it somehow? Each time when I stood in the doorway with a last, cheerful good-bye, something “important” occurred to one of us: “Just this I must really tell you.” Georg was so jovial and happy, and, “Actually he doesn’t look so terribly bad, only a bit under the weather,” thought I to myself as I sat in the taxi and rode to the doctor, who would, of course, give me prescriptions for diet, medicine, etc.
“Thank goodness, the pneumonia is well over,” I said to the doctor, as I sat opposite him in his consultation room. Somewhat hesitatingly he answered.
“Yes, but the X-ray picture shows a large shadow in the lung, which indicates a tumor.”
“Well, then, we must cure that tumor,” I said, looking confidently and encouragingly at the doctor.
“But it is not a benign tumor,” he answered in a muffled voice without looking up. I didn’t understand him, and was only astonished. Then suddenly like lightning, an appalling thought went through my head.
“For heaven’s sake, Doctor, it can’t be cancer?”
Silently he bent his head low over his folded hands, and a heavy silence settled over the room….
New York is a very large city, and within the limits of this city live more people than in all Austria. But for me in that sinister night it was worse than a wilderness. In the wilderness at least I would have seen the starry sky, but in New York the little sky which one might still see between the skyscrapers is veiled in smoke. In my desperation I didn’t even think of taking a bus or a taxi. Mechanically I simply walked on in the direction of the hotel for two and a half hours; and not a single church did I pass on the way. Quite automatically I had put my hand in my pocket and started to say the rosary. Once again this ancient prayer, which has borne up to heaven so much human suffering and heartache proved to be a good, strong friend in need.
In my room I literally hung on the telephone. The friends on whose help I counted most had gone away. The next friends’ only child was sick, and before I could say anything of my trouble, they described to me their own. How I would have liked to telephone the children or Father Wasner; but they were on the way home, and I had no idea in which city they were stopping that night. Meanwhile, it was past midnight, but there was no question of sleeping. My room was high up on the twenty-seventh
floor. Through the open window I looked out over the sea of buildings. As the church steeples are much lower than the surrounding skyscrapers, one doesn’t see them. Even this consolation is denied. My God, how lonely one is in a big city!
At last that night was over. At five o’clock in the morning I finally found an open church. At seven o’clock I took a taxi to go back to the doctor to see if there wasn’t something, anything we could do. I remembered having heard that recently Thomas Mann, at the age of seventy-five, had successfully undergone an operation for cancer of the lung.
“Even that we have already thought of,” said the doctor. “There is a marvellous specialist in this very rare and exceedingly difficult operation here. But the tumor is located in a place where one cannot operate.”
“Well, what else can we do then?” I choked through my tears.
“Unfortunately, nothing.”
“But I can’t just let him die like that!”
Silence.
And now I had to go to the hospital to get a completely unsuspecting Georg, and could give no sign that the doctor had given him about three months to live.
He was so glad to be out of the hospital that he paid no attention to my face.
The next day we went home. Georg was rather talkative. Interrupted by violent coughing, again and again he wanted to tell me of earlier times. Then for a longer time he was silent and gazed earnestly ahead.
Suddenly he said: “See, now it is that way again. From time to time there comes such a picture. I see you all on the farm, working and getting tired out, and then I look for myself, and I’m not there any more.”
The Story of the Trapp Family Singers Page 31
