The Story of the Trapp Family Singers

by Maria Augusta Trapp

  “The sap is running,” said Theophile; “we have started to tap.”

  We looked at each other, and finally Georg said:

  “What is running?”

  And Theophile had to explain to us newcomers all about maple syrup and how it is made. Maple sugar is as distinctly American as is the skunk. We had never heard of it in Europe, and now, without even a warning, we were making it ourselves.

  Again our vocabulary was enriched by new acquisitions, such as “to tap,” “spouts,” “buckets,” “evaporator,” “sugar house.”

  The very next morning we started out on the loveliest time we had had so far in America, the weeks in The Stowe-Away included: our first sugaring season. Theophile and his oldest boy went with the team and the gathering tank on the sled. Our girls helped collect the sap, and Theophile showed Georg the more important and rather intricate process of boiling it. Georg and I were in the sugar house, and we loved it. We loved the whole atmosphere.

  This was the very first beginning of spring in Vermont, much snow still around, and the horses had to force their way, breast-deep when they started to break in the sugar road. But around noon the sun got warmer. It thawed from the roof of the sugar house, and little rivulets were running all around the sugar bush. Some unprotected places on the slopes were already bare, and an early spring flower raised its dainty little head. The first birds could be heard through the woods; spring was in the air and filled you with new energy and joyful anticipation. Feeding the fire with those heavy, big logs and handling the cans with maple syrup made our backs ache in the evening when we walked back towards the house, very tired but satisfied. Maple syrup is a cash crop. It was the first money we made on our farm. Then Georg counted the gallon cans as the stack grew, down in the cellar. There were already over a hundred, and each can would bring $3.60. I was so very happy, because the occupation in the sugar bush kept Georg away from the house, the sight of which was such a thorn in his side, and his work got him into better and better spirits.

  Cold weather set in again, the first run was over; an awful blizzard kept us in the house. There would be no sugaring, Theophile told us, for a few days. When we were all in the house at once, it didn’t need much persuasion to see the point: it was too small for us. There was an architect, Alfred, living in Stowe, whom we had consulted about the condition of the buildings before we bought the farm. He had assured us that they were in good enough repair to be fixed for our personal needs. This architect was a special godsend for us, as he had lived more than half of his life in Europe, expecially in our Austrian Alps, talked our language fluently, and knew very well the part of the country where we came from. Very soon his family and ours were on most friendly terms, and everybody called everybody else by his first name.

  On this particular blizzard day we called Alfred on the telephone. Although we had no electric light, we had a telephone, which we had not used so far. There was a hitherto-unseen machine screwed to the wall. One had to stand on tiptoe to be able to speak into the mouthpiece, but it was a telephone. I took the receiver as I was used to doing in Merion, and great was my astonishment when a voice said:

  “And how do Grandpa’s new teeth fit?”

  I hadn’t had any experience with a party line before, didn’t know what was going on, and listened entranced to the sad story that the teeth didn’t fit at all, and Grandpa was losing them all the time. Long after silence had set in on that “talky-talky machine” as Johannes called it, I tried in vain to click the receiver and get a connection—until I discovered the crank. It took some more time to find out that it only worked with the receiver on while cranking, but then I felt a little like Columbus after the discovery of America. I got Alfred on the line and informed him that our cabin was slightly too small, and what could he do for us?

  “Oh, that can easily be helped,” I heard his cheerful, reassuring voice. “You just raise the roof and build another storey. You’ll have plenty of room.”

  Further, he advised us to see Mr. Sears, a very good carpenter in the village. We called Mr. Sears, who promised to come and see us as soon as the blizzard was over. That was next day. We explained to Mr. Sears our need and Alfred’s advice, and asked if we couldn’t start right away. He looked a little doubtful as the weather was still very cold, but when he saw our pleading eyes, he gave in and on the same afternoon we started to rip open the roof, which had to be raised according to prescription.

  Georg, Maria, and Hedwig went wholeheartedly into carpentry, and soon most of the roof was gone, and a new construction of two-by-four’s indicated the new lines. On the fourth day there was another blizzard, which kept Mr. Sears at home. At noon we were all sitting in the kitchen, which was in the ell, eating lunch, when all of a sudden we heard a terrific crash. We jumped up, and when we opened the door into the living room, we stepped into the open. Most of the house was gone. It had fallen, chimney and all, right down into the cellar. A few broken walls were still standing, but the roof was definitely gone. As if this had been the goal to be accomplished, the blizzard almost at once died down, after having covered the whole mess with a thin film of new snow. At this moment the telephone rang. It was our ring—Ring 3. I went out into the open air. The telephone was still hanging on a piece of wall. Alfred’s cheerful voice inquired how things were.

  “I wanted to say, don’t open too much of the roof at one time,” he warned. “On a stormy day that might not be too good.”

  “It won’t bother us any more, Alfred,” I said.

  “Oh,” he seemed to beam, “congratulations! Are you that far already? But that was fast.”

  “Why don’t you come and see for yourself,” said I and hung up. Then I called Mr. Sears.

  “Mr. Sears, can you tell me what one does with a fallen-down house?”

  “I’ll be right up,” said a hasty voice.

  An hour later an architect and a carpenter stood at the grave of their plans and tried to hold hands with the bereaved. The whole situation was so unique that it had some of the flavor of a threatening flood or an ocean crossing during the war—some of that champagne-like tickling of the nerves. What was going to happen next? My poor husband looked broken.

  “Now, Georg,” I said, “I am really glad for your sake. You hated the idea of putting a new patch on the old frock, as you called it. You didn’t trust the foundation, you didn’t like the whole idea. Now we’ll build a new house and make it exactly as we want it.”

  “Build a new house—where’s the money, may I ask you?”

  “Bah—money! Didn’t somebody once say that a nation is worth exactly as much as it is willing to work? What is good for a nation is good for a family, and that way we are worth millions. Congratulations!”

  Architect and carpenter agreed that the next thing that would have to be done was to tear down what little of the house was still standing.

  “And now, Alfred, please make us a plan of an Austrian farm house, and if we all work together, we’ll have a lovely home very soon!”

  I was astonished that the always-happy-sounding, cheerful voice only said “Well,” but it rather sounded like “W—e—e—e—e—l—l,” and then: “There’s a war going on and the War Production Board has forbidden any new building to be erected. We’ll have to see about the regulations.”

  While the sugaring went on, parts of the family worked in the sugar bush, while parts learned the use of crowbars in tearing down walls, in separating boards. Under layers of wallpaper we found newspaper from the year 1832. The nails were handmade; the boards, very wide; the beams, hand-hewn. We tried to keep as much of the good old material as possible to be used in the new building. Alfred had found out that the war building regulations permitted one to build onto an existing house, and this fitted our case if anyone dared to call the remaining ell a house. There was the kitchen with a woodshed behind downstairs, and two rooms upstairs. One room was inhabited by Father Wasner; the other one, by Georg, myself, and little Johannes. These rooms were not heatable. W
hen the snowstorms raged outside, dainty little pyramids formed on the floor, as the roof leaked. That was all right as long as what came down from the sky was snow. Later when the weather grew warmer and it started to rain, we needed an umbrella and a few buckets in each room. But that was after the sugaring season, and there were plenty of buckets to use.

  We had to make an application, and the War Production Board sent a commission to investigate the necessity of the planned construction. All we had to do was show them around: first, the small kitchen, which also served as dining and living room for twelve people; then, the two remaining bedrooms; then, the dormitory for all the girls, which was above the horse barn in the hay loft; and finally, the arrangement under the horse barn, which was a substitute for the one bathroom for a mile around, which, with the rest of the house, had gone down into the cellar. The gentlemen wholeheartedly agreed that the necessity for new construction was urgent, and our petition was granted.

  When the sugaring season was over, we proudly counted 363 gallons. The clearing-up of the ruins now made it necessary to carry the cans into the cow barn. Agathe had found time between chores to make a lovely woodcut for a label, saying: “Pure Vermont Maple Syrup from the Trapp Family Farm.” We were deeply impressed when we read that for the first time.

  Now the buckets had to be washed and stored for the next year. The evaporator was turned upside down, the smokestack packed away indoors, the sugar house closed up after a final “sugaring-off party” with Theophile and his family. It had been a lovely time. On the same afternoon Theophile broke the sad news to us that he had bought a farm of his own and was going to leave us, but he recommended that his brother be given his place. We were glad that Theophile had found a place he liked, but we were sad to lose him. A few days later Ovila came with a family of seven children, the oldest, eleven.

  It was Sunday afternoon and the whole family had gone down to the farm house to help the newcomers move in. I was sitting outside just enjoying myself; I intended to go down a little later. As I felt cool, I started to go upstairs to get my jacket. When I walked through the kitchen, I could hear footsteps upstairs. I knew definitely that all our people were gone. Who could that be? There it came over to the stairs, and I could hardly believe my eyes when a tremendous big skunk came waddling down the stairs. I had heard enough about skunks to make me politely back up, almost apologizing. Slowly he came down into the kitchen but, oh horror! didn’t walk out through the wide-open door, but settled under the ice box. I ran down to the farm house to tell the others, and when we all came back home afterwards, the black and white tail was still sticking out from under the ice box. We all tiptoed and whispered in order not to frighten the dangerous guest.

  He apparently liked it there, and for days he came and went, so that finally he became so tame that he drank milk out of a bowl and looked for food in our garbage pail. One day he came back with a family. As the ice box was not big enough, they settled under the house. But one cannot tiptoe and whisper forever, and once in a while something dropped to the floor, which was the roof for the skunk family. Then Mother Skunk quietly gave the defense signal: “Let us spray,” and unanimously we hated the one who had dropped that fatal fork, or whatever it happened to be.

  Real spring came to Vermont. The last snow was gone, and after a few days of warm rain and another few days of hot sun, the whole countryside was changed within a week. A new coat of green covered everything, green in all shades, from the tender, yellowish green of the new foliage to the more intense green of the grass on all the slopes, and the dark spots of spruce and pine. The air was full of new melodies we had never heard before. Every day brought exciting discoveries. The first trillium was found in the shade, dutchman’s breeches, dog-toothed violets, quaker ladies, all were new to us, new and exiting.

  Spring in a suburb is tame and well-groomed, like everything in a well-kept suburb. One day the garden service arrives by truck, and out come a few men with a number of tools. In a great hurry the hedge is trimmed, the lawn repaired, and a bed full of pansies is left behind. But spring out in the country in its wild beauty is something which almost tears one’s heart out. What abundance, what generosity of nature! So much of everything; of flowers, of buds on the trees, of bees and bugs, of the very water trickling in innumerable springs down the hills, making the brooks in the valleys roar with joy, of the very sunshine falling in heavy, warm folds from the cloudless sky. You feel some of this elementary renewal going on within yourself. Your chest widens and so does your heart. You are full of new plans and new life, and your heart is willing to love everything and everybody with new zeal. Our living quarters gave us plenty of chance to live out-of-doors, and that way we enjoyed to the utmost the first spring on our hill. Every morning when we saw the sun rise behind Elmore Mountain, bathing our hill in its light while the low valleys were covered with thick, white fog, and every night when it went down behind Nebraska Notch, our hearts filled with exultation and thanks that we had bought this place, this hill, this view.

  All we needed now to complete our happiness was a decent place to worship. Chapels were not mentioned among necessary constructions, so we couldn’t think of building one now; but next to the old horse barn was the newest building on our place, a chicken coop, uninhabited. After a lot of scrubbing and whitewashing, it looked and smelled clean, and then—three cheers for the auction house of Freeman!—there were the curtains. The walls disappeared behind heavy folds. Georg carpentered an altar and Maria made a tabernacle; we put two benches along the side, Freeman carpets on the floor, and then we approached our Bishop for permission to reserve the Blessed Eucharist. Since the days of Bethlehem, Our Lord must have a secret liking for stables. The permission was readily given, and the Feast of Corpus Christi was celebrated in joy and glory on our hilltop. The Bishop had graciously lent vestments and a monstrance for this our beginning. Two priest friends had arrived from Washington and helped now to celebrate this great event. For the first time since the creation of the world, the Blessed Sacrament was carried over this hill. When Father Wasner raised the monstrance in Benediction, he showed the Lord this corner of Vermont, and as in the very first days of creation: “God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good.”

  With Holy Mass in the morning and Benediction in the evening, the days were framed from now on, and what rich days they were!

  After the snow had gone, we started first to clear up around the house. Twenty-four big truckloads of rusty old wire, parts of machinery, beer and whiskey bottles, three broken-down cars, and tin cans—tin cans no end—we took down to the city dump heap, and only after the last load was there, did we learn that we were not eligible to use it. We should have made our own junk disposal somewhere on our grounds. But the good people didn’t make us take the twenty-four loads back, thank goodness! After a wilderness of old fence posts and wires was taken away from around the house, it looked much better right away, especially when the old apple trees broke out in such abundant bloom. Only the old ell still looked like a broken tooth. From the left-overs of the main house Mr. Sears built a nice, roomy cabin outside on the lawn, which served as dining and living room very well all through the summer. There we could even entertain guests most successfully.

  Mr. Sears had long since turned from being a mere carpenter into an all-around factotum. He knew absolutely everything, from where to buy this and that to how to make elderberry wine out of the bloom of elderberries, or how to collect and dry fresh ferns to fill a cushion against rheumatism.

  During the last year in Merion when we needed more time for rehearsing, we had looked for part-time help for the kitchen, and had found a colored maid. Her name was Aunt Bea, and she was of such a sweet disposition and so lovable that we all grew very fond of her. Aunt Bea had cried when we moved away from Merion, and had said: “Whenever you need me, just tell me. I’ll come with the next train.” As far as help was concerned, we really needed Aunt Bea. It would have released a whole person for working on th
e house. But where to put her? Mr. Sears, as always, had the answer. He remade the woodshed behind the kitchen into three dear little rooms. One more thing we needed: a bed not so wide as the ones we had bought.

  “Why don’t you go to an auction,” Mr. Sears said, and showed me how, in the back of The Burlington Free Press, auctions were announced daily; two, three, or four. The mere word “auction” had a sweet sound to my ears, and I picked the nearest one and set out to buy a bed. Georg had such an innate aversion to buying second-hand things other people had used, that he didn’t want to come along. I would have found the place easily even without special directions by the number of cars lining the road a mile in advance; and there was the place, with all the farm machinery displayed and the auctioneer standing on the manure spreader, pointing with his stick at the various things. They were through with the cattle when I arrived. I had hardly taken a place at the outskirts of the crowd, when the auctioneer eyed me and addressed me sweetly over the heads of the others.