Memories Before and After the Sound of Music

by Agathe von Trapp

  Uncle Karl made Hungarian goulash for the whole party of about thirty persons, while the ladies prepared the drinks and the rest of the meal. In the meantime, Lorli Meran, our cousin, then a little girl of about five years of age, wearing a red dirndl and a bright blue apron, went to the brook to watch the fish. Suddenly she felt a pull on her apron from the back. As she turned, she looked right into the face of a cow that was starting to eat her apron strings. Fortunately she was used to animals of all kinds, and she calmly started to pull her apron strings out of the cow’s mouth. Only with the help of one of the adults who quickly came to her aid did she recover her apron.

  For approximately three weeks we enjoyed an unforgettable family reunion. Then it was time to part, and each family and party went to its respective home. We left the mountains behind. Although we parted from our relatives, we took the music home with us. By that time we knew most of the pieces by heart.

  When school started in September, the camping trip faded from our memories, but the music remained and became part of our repertoire. With Rupert on the accordion, Papá on the first violin, Maria on the second violin, and me on the guitar, we made music whenever we could find time!

  Our repertoire was enriched, our enthusiasm was stirred, and we played the new pieces that we had heard on the mountain again and again. One of them we called “The Tauern Marsch” (The Tauern March). There were other dance melodies and songs that we loved to play. At that time my father wrote to his cousin Flora in the United States: “My children sing and play music all day long. One does that only when one is young.”

  A New Mother and Two Baby Sisters

  Before Mamá died, she told Papá that he should marry again. She knew that she was leaving him with seven small children, the oldest ten and the youngest not yet two. They needed a mother’s love, care, and attention, and so did our big household.

  Around this time, Papá was encouraged to marry a distant relative of Mamá’s—an Austrian countess. This marriage, however, did not materialize. Papá was too heartsick over the loss of his beloved Agathe to think of marrying again so soon after her death. He engaged a housekeeper to oversee the household help and to supervise the routine of the older children. In Aigen it was Baroness Rita Mandelsloh, a refined, soft-spoken lady in her sixties, who went quietly about her duties.

  After the scarlet fever epidemic in Klosterneuburg, Maria and Werner still suffered from the effects of the illness. Both had heart murmurs and were supposed to be careful not to overexert themselves. But where does one draw the line? How does one know what is too much? Maria was given a constant warning: “You must not do this. You must not do that. This is too much and that is too much.” I believe that her spirit was dampened by being overprotected, which had an effect opposite from what it was meant to have. Playing the violin was one of the few things she could do that did not carry the warning, “Do not overdo.”

  In those days, the “little ones” and the “big ones” were strictly separated. The little ones, Hedwig, Johanna, and Martina, had a room together, with the nanny watching over their daily routine. They had a playroom of their own.

  The big ones, Rupert, Maria, Werner, and I, had already outgrown a governess. Maria and I had a large room together, with two desks where each of us did homework. The two boys had separate rooms. Baroness Mandelsloh hovered over the whole, big household and family with a motherly attitude. Every night she came to our bedsides to say “good night” and to talk to us or solve any problems we might have. I remember her with great affection. But Baroness Mandelsloh was a housekeeper, not a teacher.

  When Maria started having increased fatigue because of her heart condition, Papá became worried. The forty-five-minute walk to and from school, as well as the long day in the classroom, exhausted her. Finally Maria could no longer attend class, and a teacher was needed to tutor her at home so that she would not have to repeat the grade. Papá went to the director of the Ursuline High School to inquire about a student from the higher grades who might live with us and help Maria with her studies. The director knew of no student to fill this role, but he did have the name of a teacher, a postulant at the Nonnberg Abbey, who was qualified and could live in. Her name was Gustl Kutschera, and she was twenty-one years old. The doctor had recommended that this particular teacher should leave the convent for a year and get a job because of constant headaches. He felt that her headaches were caused by the sudden confining life she had to lead in the convent.

  Papá hired Gustl on the spot, sight unseen. The next day she reported to our house. Papá called us downstairs with his boatswain’s whistle. We came down the wide staircase two by two because it was the fastest way to get down. Then we stood in front of a person whose clothes looked as if they had come from a comic book.

  Gustl—Maria Augusta Kutschera was her full name—wore a dark blue summer dress with an unusual neckline, and a leather hat. In one hand she held a briefcase, and in the other hand, a guitar. We greeted her politely, without great enthusiasm, because she would only be the teacher of our sister Maria. She would have nothing to do with the rest of us. After the initial introduction, Gustl was shown to her room and informed of the time and place of the next meal. We children disappeared into our rooms to finish our homework.

  During the following days, we did not see much of Gustl, who was spending her time with Maria. Only at mealtimes did she join the family. Little by little she started to talk to all of us, and when she found out that we liked to sing, she joined in our songs. She also taught us folk songs that she knew. What a difference between Gustl and the housekeepers, who were much older than we were and never joined in! At that particular time, Gustl made friends with the rest of us. Because she was interacting with the children to whom she had not been assigned, she was entering into someone else’s territory. That created a problem for our Baroness Mandelsloh.

  Since there were many hours when Gustl did not have to teach, she was asked to use the time to mend the many stockings of the children. Mending stockings is not common in the United States. But in Austria at that time, the stockings that the young girls wore were made not of silk or nylon, but of a rather heavy cotton knit. When the heels were worn thin, they could be mended and made as good as new. The knee-highs of the boys also needed mending, so there were about fourteen pairs of stockings and thus, twenty-eight single stockings needing work. It took a long time to mend them! Gustl hated the job, but she complied. I can still see her sitting on a cushion on the floor with a mountain of stockings beside her. She moaned and groaned and sighed about what a tedious and hard job it was and that she did not know how to mend.

  Finally I offered to help. Now she had a companion in her misery and started to tell me about her childhood in Vienna and her life at the convent. She also wanted to know what I thought about various things. I was thirteen years old then. She told me that she was born on a train going from Tyrol to Vienna. Her mother was traveling home to be with her husband when the baby arrived, but Gustl arrived sooner than was expected. Her mother died soon after her birth, and her father entrusted her to the care of a foster mother who lived on the outskirts of Vienna.

  Gustl continued to tell me about her childhood. When she was nine years old, her father died, and a relative, whom she called “Uncle Franz,” became her legal guardian. He loved to punish Gustl. For example, on her way home from school, she would stop to pick wildflowers to bring home. Uncle Franz punished her for not coming straight home. He punished her daily, whether she had done something wrong or not. Gustl decided to enjoy herself with her school friends in spite of Uncle Franz’s orders because she knew he would punish her anyway.

  She told me that she wanted to become a teacher, so she ran away and enrolled in a boarding school that offered a teachers’ training course. To pay for her room and board, she did embroidery. During the summer months, she traveled with a youth group of boys and girls known as Neuland. Their purpose was to reform the social order of the day. She was part of their choir and enjo
yed going throughout the countryside, giving concerts and collecting folk songs. The young people in the group wore imitation peasant clothing. The girls wore dirndl-like dresses that they made themselves. The boys wore Lederhosen and jackets. All of them wore sandals. They despised what they called the “sophisticated society.”

  Something else Gustl told me about was her love of music. Because she loved music and could not afford to go to concerts, she attended Mass in the Catholic churches in Vienna on Sundays. Her purpose was not to worship, but to hear the music that did not cost anything. One day she heard a sermon, and after Mass, she sought out the priest. She poured out to him all her opposition to and resentment of the Catholic Church. He listened until she finished talking and said, “Kneel down and confess your sins.” In that moment she said that she changed. The next time they had Mass in the school chapel she went forward to take Holy Communion to demonstrate her conversion. She was then sorry that she had previously convinced her classmates to turn away from the Catholic Church and tried to change their unbelief.

  Sometime after her conversion Gustl went mountain climbing with some friends. On top of a mountain, seeing the surrounding beauty, she made a sudden decision to give up all this earthly beauty and enter a convent. Looking for the strictest one, she entered the Benedictine order in Salzburg. She described her misbehavior there and the patience of the nuns as they caught her sliding down banisters, singing and whistling in the corridors, and coming late for prayers. Finding a way to go up to a flat part of the roof, she looked out over the town of Salzburg and passed her free time reading. The song titled “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” from The Sound of Music was very appropriate.

  During our mending sessions, Gustl also told me another interesting story. At one time, before she came to our home, she had seen us walking two by two with Fräulein Freckmann in Klosterneuburg. She said, “When I saw how she had you walking in such a regimented way, I really felt sorry for you children. I would have liked to have been your governess then.”

  I wondered how she knew it had been us and how she knew Fräulein Freckmann by name. She told me that she used to visit the lady in whose house the seminars on early Christian liturgy were held. She had met Fräulein Freckmann there. Was that a coincidence? Because of her interesting stories, our time mending passed quickly.

  She intensely disliked Baroness Mandelsloh, and the feeling was mutual. Baroness Mandelsloh saw her as an intruder, and Gustl saw Baroness Mandelsloh as a necessary evil. Baroness Rita Mandelsloh retreated from the situation and took her leave. There was only one more thorn in Gustl’s side: Frau Stiegler. She had adored Mamá and resented Gustl’s intrusion, but Frau Stiegler stayed.

  Papá had become fond of Gustl when he saw that she was interested in his children and that we all responded well to her. We were busy learning new songs, playing volleyball, and hiking into the mountains with her.

  Mr. Hankey, an American who owned a yacht in Bremerhaven, Germany, wrote Papá a letter. He asked Papá to consider sailing this yacht from Bremerhaven to Genoa, Italy, as a hired captain. Papá became interested in this venture since sailing was his specialty. He also saw it as a way to enjoy being at sea again, using his skills of sailing unfamiliar waters. This request presented a wonderful challenge for him, and with everything at home going well, he took the job.

  After several weeks he was back home, having accomplished his mission to the satisfaction of Mr. Hankey. One day Papá asked me into his study. He sat down on the sofa, and I sat in a chair next to him. He asked, “Do you think I should marry Gustl? You know, she’s quite pretty.” I remember the exact words of my answer to Papá: “I think if it is the will of God, then you should marry her.” At the age of fourteen this was not my usual way of thinking, but the words just flowed out. Papá may have asked some of the other children too.

  On November 27, 1927, Papá married Gustl in the Church of the Nonnberg Abbey. Now Papá had a second wife, and we seven had a second mother. Immediately after the wedding, the question arose of how we should address her as our new mother. Gustl sensed this delicate question had to be settled. She said to us, “Why don’t you call me ‘Mother’? That distinguishes me from your real mother, and at the same time, it is appropriate because I am now your mother.”

  At first it was a little difficult and awkward to use a name we had never used before, but eventually we became accustomed to it. We did not realize then that we would be cemented together with this new mother for the next twenty-nine years in a musical adventure that would save us from the terrifying upheaval of World War II and would take us across the ocean to a new continent, which was to become our new home: America.

  Gustl was twenty-two years of age and Papá was forty-seven when she married into our family. She was only six years older than Rupert, the oldest son, and eight years older than I was. She knew much more of the world outside the confines of our home than we did due to the circumstances of her childhood and schooling. She had definite opinions about life and voiced them “loud and clear.” Now that she was our second mother and we were her obedient children, she slowly became the important person in our lives.

  Mother was young and full of energy. She perceived our well-regulated daily routine as boring and lifeless and wanted to bring fun and more pleasant activities into our lives. She disliked the fact that it took us so-o-o long to do our homework but did enjoy Papá’s after-dinner “coffee hour.” It was Papá’s special time with us. He had our butler, Hans, bring into the living room a set of demitasse cups made of rice china, which he had bought in the Middle East during his trip around the world. These cups and a copper pot with a wooden handle were set up on an ornate oriental brass tray. Papá added a spoonful of sugar to the water in the copper pot and brought it to the boiling point over a small flame. Then he added the coffee, which he ground in a hand grinder, to the boiling water. This was the daily social hour before we went to our different activities after lunch or dinner. I believe that Papá really relished this moment when all our eyes were glued to his hands. After handing each one of his children a cup filled with this delicious brew, he started telling us stories from his early life. I still treasure those hours with Papá and his Turkish after-dinner coffee. They were very special moments.

  During the years that followed the wedding, our new mother made many changes in our family. She changed the way we dressed, what we ate, and how we lived. A new wind blew through our house. She was apprehensive about being a second mother; therefore, she read many books about how to be a stepmother and how children react to second mothers. Her readings suggested that children often do not accept a stepmother. That, however, was not the case in our family; we accepted her completely. Because of her readings to the contrary, she did not believe our acceptance, a misperception on her part that would lead to many future misunderstandings.

  Our new mother thought of numerous things for us to do. We continued to participate in all the activities she liked so much and had introduced to us before she married Papá. Mother was fond of volleyball, so we played with her for hours. I hated volleyball! She loved mountain climbing, so the whole family went mountain climbing in the summer and during the school year.

  She organized our free time with other outdoor activities, such as bicycle trips. She taught us ancient dances, which she had learned in her youth group, and we danced them on our lawn. Evenings were taken up with singing. All of these activities had been part of her earlier life, and we enjoyed them because they were new and entertaining.

  Sometimes these activities collided with homework. By that time, my sister Maria had recovered enough to resume her school schedule, so all of us had homework. Even though we enjoyed the new activities Mother planned for us, especially the mountain climbing, there was always the question: How are we going to finish our homework? This especially created a dilemma for me because I was very conscientious about my lessons. Although Mother loved creating free-time activities for us, she hated housework and was glad that
there was a staff to do it.

  Mother was a wonderful storyteller. Whenever she would tell a story, I would become so fascinated that I would stare at her continuously in order to watch her expressions. This continual staring made her very uncomfortable, and she let me know it in no uncertain terms. I, however, misinterpreted her dislike of my staring at her and thought she did not like my face.

  Mother had an overwhelming personality that drew people to her like a magnet. Today, we would say she had charisma. In turn, she adored being the center of attention. This was so much the case that, as the years passed, Papá became more withdrawn and seemed to fade into the background.

  Mother had many strong opinions, and soon she tried to convince us that a reform of the existing lifestyle of our society was necessary. For instance, she did not approve of drinking alcohol or smoking. Since the adverse health effects of these activities were not known at the time, her objections were purely on a personal basis.

  Because she had attended a school that embraced a socialistic ideology, with which she agreed, she had strong prejudices against the aristocracy. She stated that this class of people was “degenerate.” These beliefs created confusion among us older children since our own relatives were solid, down-to-earth people who lived simple lives, in spite of the fact that they owned and lived in castles. I could not understand why she thought that my relatives needed to be reformed. Mother had such strong ideas that it was useless to object or argue with her.

  Papá, in his quiet way, tried to steer her away from these ideas by introducing her to Mamá’s cousins and their families who lived in the vicinity of Salzburg. Imagine her surprise when she discovered that “those aristocrats” were intelligent, kind, warmhearted people, who each had a wonderful sense of humor and did not live glamorous or overindulgent lives as she had imagined! She learned a lot from them, and later in life, she would use the title of “Baroness” herself!