The Story of the Trapp Family Singers Epub

  The Story of the Trapp Family Singers

The Story that Inspired the Audio of Music

Maria Augusta Trapp

Contents

Part I

The Chapter Before the Get-go

I Just Loaned

II Glories of the Past

Three "The Baron Doesn't Want It…."

Iv An Austrian Christmas

V "God's Will Hath No Why"

Vi Feasts in a Family

Seven A Festival Summer and a Baby

Eight Uncle Peter and His Handbook

Nine An Functioning, a Turtle, and a Long Distance Call

X Aren't Nosotros Lucky!

Xi "Never Again"

XII From Hobby to Profession

Xiii And the Lord Said to Abram…

Function Two

I On the "American Farmer"

II The First Ten Years Are the Hardest

Iii Getting Settled

IV Barbara

V What Side by side?

VI In Sight of the Statue of Liberty

VII Learning New Ways

VIII The Miracle

Ix Merion

X The Wing

XI Stowe in Vermont

XII A New Chapter

Thirteen The Cease of a Perfect Stay

Fourteen The New Firm

XV Concerts in Wartime

Xvi Trapp Family Music Military camp

XVII Snapshots of the Camp

18 Trapp Family unit Austrian Relief, Inc.

XIX A Letter

XX The Memorable Twelvemonth

XXI Cor Unum

About the Author

Praise

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

The Affiliate Before the Start

TO BE quite honest, this really is a foreword or an introduction, but I'grand so afraid that if I say so, you won't read information technology, as I never read forewords, and being so anxious that y'all do listen to what I want to tell y'all virtually the volume before it starts, I ask you, foreword or no foreword, please read it just the same.

Virtually fifteen years agone my family and I were visiting in Tirol. Our hostess was a famous writer.

"Isn't it funny," she said one day, "I never wrote a discussion in my life until after I was twoscore!"

"That's quite incredible," nosotros mused.

The next 24-hour interval nosotros all went into a picturesque valley. On the way nosotros saw a chapel greeting us from one of the wooded slopes.

"Let's climb up at that place," said our hostess. "That's an interesting identify." And and then it was. The ancient building was of quaint architecture. Through the roof came a rope dangling down, which belonged to the bell in the petty steeple. Playfully I took the rope to attempt out the audio of the bell.

Looking at our friend, I said: "I wish I could go a writer, too, after I'k forty!" I meant that every bit a joke, and felt a piddling embarrassed when she didn't smile.

She looked at me rather queerly and said: "Did you know the story?"

I allow the rope get and asked: "Which story?"

"Well," she said, "the people say that once in a hundred years information technology happens if someone rings this bell while pronouncing a wish, that wish, whatever it may be, will come up true, provided the person is unaware of the legend. The people of this valley telephone call it the 'wishing bell.'"

"No—I didn't know this story," said I.

This was fifteen years agone.

While working on this volume and writing downwards the memories of a family unit, it astonished, amazed, almost overwhelmed me to meet how much beloved—genuine, real honey—was stored up in one short lifetime: first, God's love for us His children, the leading, guiding, protecting honey of a Father; and every bit every real love calls forth honey in return, it couldn't be any different here.

As we are singers, this story turned into a vocal, a canticle. "Cantate Domino canticum novum," sings Male monarch David in one of his Psalms: "Sing unto the Lord a new song." God has become for our age the great Unknown 1. Things are blamed on the weather, on politics, on circumstances, on lack of vitamins, on inheritance; but they are rarely attributed to their ane source. "The Story of the Trapp Family Singers" wants to be a canticle of dear and gratitude to the Heavenly Father in His Divine Providence.

Cor Unum

Stowe, Vermont

Pentecost Sun, 1949

Part I

I Just Loaned

SOMEBODY tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up from the workbooks of my fifth graders, which I was just correcting, into the lined, sometime face of a little lay sister, every wrinkle radiating kindliness.

"Reverend Mother Abbess expects yous in her individual parlor," she whispered.

Before I could close my mouth, which had opened in astonishment, the door close behind the small figure. Lay sisters were not supposed to converse with candidates for the novitiate.

I could hardly believe my ears. We candidates saw Reverend Mother Abbess only from afar in choir. We were the lowest of the low, living on the outskirts of the novitiate, wearing our blackness mantillas, waiting with eager anticipation for our reception into the sacred walls of the novitiate. I had simply finished the State Teachers' College for Progressive Educational activity in Vienna and had to get my Master of Instruction caste earlier the heavy doors of the enclosure would shut behind me—forever.

It was unheard of that Reverend Mother Abbess should call for a candidate. What might this mean? Her private parlor was far at the other cease of the old Abbey, and I chose the longest detour to go there, in guild to proceeds time for examining my conscience. I was the black sheep of the community; there was no doubt about that. I never meant anything bad, merely my upbringing had been more that of a wild male child than that of a young lady. Time and again I had been warned by the Mistress of Novices that I could not race over the staircase similar that, taking two and three steps at a time; that I definitely could not slide down the banister; that whistling, even the whistling of sacred tunes, had never been heard in these venerable rooms before; that jumping over the chimneys on the apartment roof of the school fly was non fitting for an aspirant to the novitiate of the holy Order of Saint Benedict. I agreed wholeheartedly each time, only the trouble was, there were so many new trespasses occurring every day.

What was the matter now, I idea, slowly winding my way down the 2 flights of old, worn steps, through the aboriginal cobblestoned kitchen g, where the huge Crucifix greets i from the wall, and where the statue of Saint Erentrudis, founder of our dear old Abbey, rises in a higher place a fountain. Slowly I entered the curtilage walk on the other side of the kitchen court.

Troubled as I was, searching through my laden conscience, I still felt once again the magic of the supernatural beauty of this most beautiful identify on earth. Twelve hundred years had worked and helped to make Nonnberg, the first Abbey of Benedictine Nuns north of the Alps, a identify of unearthly dazzler. For a moment I had to break and glance again over the gray, eighth-century cloister wall before I ascended the screw stairway leading to the quarters of Reverend Mother Abbess.

Shyly I knocked on the heavy oaken door, which was and then thick that I could hear only faintly the "Ave," Benedictine equivalent of the American, "Hello, come in."

It was the first fourth dimension I had been in this part of the Abbey. The massive door opened into a large room with an arched ceiling; the ane column in the heart had beautifully simple lines. Almost all the rooms in this wonderful Abbey were arched, the ceilings carried past columns; the windows were fabricated of stained glass, even in the school wing. Nearly this window in that location was a big desk, from which rose a fragile, small figure, wearing a gold cross on a gold chain effectually her neck.

"Maria honey, how are y'all, darling?"

Oh this kind, kind phonation! Non just stones, simply large rocks fell from my heart when I heard that tone. How could I ever have worried? No, Reverend Mother was not like that—making a fuss about trivial things like whistling—and then a faint promise rose in my heart that she might perhaps talk to me now virtually the definite date of my reception.

"Sit down down, my child. No, right here near me."

After a minute's break she took both my hands in hers, looked inquiringly into my eyes, and said: "Tell me, Maria, which is the well-nigh of import lesson our former Nonnberg has taught y'all?"

Without a moment's hesitation I answered, looking fully into the beautiful, nighttime eyes: "The just important thing on world for u.s.a. is to detect out what is the Will of God and to do it."

"Even if information technology is not pleasant, or if it is difficult, perchance very hard?" The easily tightened on mine.

Well now, she means leaving the world and giving up everything and all that, I thought to myself.

"Yes, Reverend Mother, even then, and wholeheartedly, also."

Releasing my easily, Reverend Mother sat dorsum in her chair.

"All right then, Maria, it seems to exist the Will of God that y'all get out us—for a while only," she connected hastily when she saw my speechless horror.

"L-50-leave Nonnberg," I stuttered, and tears welled up in my eyes. I couldn't assist it. The motherly adult female was very near now, her arms effectually my shoulders, which were shaking with sobs.

"Your headaches, you lot know, growing worse from week to week. The doctor feels that you lot have made also quick a change from mountain climbing to our cloistered life, and he suggests we send yous abroad, for less than one curt twelvemonth, to some identify where y'all can have normal practise. Then it volition all settle downwards, and next June you lot will come back, never to leave over again."

Adjacent June—my goodness, now it was but October!

"It only so happened that a sure Baron von Trapp, retired Captain in the Austrian Navy, chosen on us today. He needs a instructor for his little daughter, who is of fragile health. You will go to his firm this afternoon. And now kneel downwards; I want to give you my blessing."

I knelt downwardly. The fine, delicately pocket-size hand made the sign of the Cantankerous on my forehead. I kissed the ring and, as through a veil, I had a final glance into those unforgettable eyes, which seemed to know all nearly woe and sorrow, grief and suffering, but also victory and peace. I couldn't utter a single word without bursting out loudly, but no words were needed, anyhow.

"Now then, go and practice it, and wholeheartedly, too."

That was all.

A few hours later I was seated on one of the green benches nether the old chestnut trees at the Residenzplatz in Salzburg, waiting for the bus that was to take me to Aigen. One hand was clasped tightly effectually a slice of newspaper which said: "Captain Georg von Trapp, Villa Trapp, Aigen bei Salzburg" the other one held the handle of an old-fashioned leather satchel, which stood next to me on the bench, and which contained all my earthly possessions, mostly books. Under my arm was pressed the neck of an almost inseparable part of myself, my guitar. Years dorsum, when I had started to piece of work my way through college, I had bought it with my showtime cocky-earned money. It had accompanied me everywhere, on all the many trips and hikes through the Alps, up to the holy loma of Nonnberg. And now it went with me into exile.

I was withal bewildered, everything had happened so fast. I tried to review the concluding few hours, which had passed like a bad dream. After I had come dorsum from Reverend Female parent Abbess, my Mistress of Novices, Frau Rafaela, was already waiting for me in the candidates' room, her artillery full of wear. When I had entered the convent a yr before, I had exchanged my Austrian costume for the black clothes and blackness mantilla of the candidates. My own apparel had been given away during the yr to some needy persons after the Chapter meeting had decided I was to be admitted for reception. I could run into that Frau Rafaela felt quite badly about the whole situation, also. She looked a little helplessly at the clothes on her arm, which had belonged to another novice who was a little shorter and wider than I. She chose one wearing apparel and, obediently, I put on an onetime-fashioned bluish serge gown with funny latticework around the neck and sleeves. I put it on three times, because I could not make out which was front and which was back. Next came a leather chapeau, which looked exactly similar a firefighter's helmet. It went right down to my forehead, and I had to give it a little push when I wanted to see Frau Rafaela, who just said:

"Now let me wait at you."

Equally she stepped back a little, her optics wandered from the hat downwardly to the blue dress, on to the black stockings and heavy, blackness shoes. She nodded agreeably.

"Very nice—very elegant."

Frau Rafaela was a saintly, elderly nun; the days of her cheerio to the world dated back at to the lowest degree thirty years. I feel pretty sure now that I must have reminded her vividly of the young ladies of her own day.

Then came a few instructions: On my day off I should ever come up back to the convent; I should remember the doctor'south advice to get enough slumber and exercise—but moderate, moderate; and finally, I should always bear in mind that my home and identify was Nonnberg, and although I had to bargain with the people of the globe, I was simply loaned to them.

My heart ached when I had to bid farewell to the other iii young candidates with whom I had shared the large, lofty room overlooking the green valley of the Salzach River. While Frau Rafaela bent over a fiddling fleck of paper to write down the name of the place where I was to get, I took in with 1 final glance the picture of the large, oblong room with the six windows, the white-curtained cells along the wall, where we slept, the large table in the heart, and the huge, one-time-fashioned Kachelofen, the European tile stove which can radiate so much comfort and warmth in the severe Salzburg winters. How happy I had been at that place, and how long it would be until I should be back; but "Thy Will Exist Done" was painted in faded, old-fashioned messages over the door on the whitewashed wall.

A few more than words, a terminal approving, and for the last fourth dimension my fingers dipped into the pewter holy water font. For a few moments I knelt at the choir grate, looking down to the main altar, request Our Lord for strength. So the one-time oaken door opened with a cranky squeak, unwilling, information technology seemed to me, to allow the youngest child of Nonnberg go back into a world from which it would much rather have protected her.

When I stepped from the cool archway into the centuries-sometime graveyard, my eyes, one-half blinded by tears and the bright sunshine, fell upon the inscription of a weathered gravestone, crooked with age: "God's Will Hath No Why."

Under the arched doorway which was cut into the large outer wall of the cemetery I turned for a last loving await at the cherished walls and whispered: "I will be back—presently."

Then I was on the road that led downwards the loma on which Saint Erentrudis had built her castle of God in the 8th century. And a castle it was, built on solid rock, with its huge walls nine feet thick at the foundation. Where this foundation seemed to grow out of the rock a little terrace had been cut into the stone. Here I paused for a few moments, looking over the railing into the deep valley from which the rock rose steeply for almost three hundred anxiety, down where the houses of Salzburg nestled to the dark-green mountain side. I was still college than the steeples of the churches. I looked over the quaint onetime Grabendächer ("ditch roofs," a roof construction frequently used on former houses in Salzburg), followed with my eyes the silverish ribbon of the Salzach River, way over to the mountains from which it came. Over at that place must be Aigen, where I was to go.

Where I was to go—for heaven's sake—I had to attain the bus; and down I went the hundred and xl-four steps, two at a time, forgetting already the very recent admonitions. On the Residenzplatz I learned that the side by side bus was due in half an hour and so, a fiddling breathless from running, there I was now sitting on ane of the green benches.

I felt quite uprooted and a footling empty in my head. What was to come next? My optics fell on the crumpled piece of paper in my hand, and I read again, "Helm von Trapp." That made me wonder. I had never been at the seashor

eastward, nor had I always met a sea captain in my life. I knew them only from story books and pictures.

"I guess he is an elderly man with a bushy, grayness beard, red cheeks, and sharp, blueish eyes," I idea to myself. "Most probably he chews tobacco and spits quite a flake. If he is a captain, he must accept been around the world many times. Surely all his walls must be plastered with trophies, lion and tiger hides, weapons, pottery, and whatnot. It will be awfully interesting."

At the same time I felt a certain awe creeping into my heart, considering surely he would shout a lot, equally body of water captains are supposed to be very gruff. At this very moment I remembered the story of the wildcat on the Bounty, a silent motion picture which I had seen just before I entered the convent, and which had haunted my nights for quite some time. There was one scene of sea wolves who not only boxed the ears of their sailors, but beat them half to decease and imprisoned them with bread and water—oh, shouldn't I rather—

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