Lesson 5:The Trapp Family Singers

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN

By Joan McElroy
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Table of Contents
The Trapp Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Meet Maria Kutschera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
The Trapp Family Singers Are Born . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Escape from the Nazis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Life in America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Becoming Famous. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Real Life vs. Reel Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
The Trapp Family Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

The Trapp Family
The story of the Trapp Family Singers began when Georg
von Trapp fell in love with Agathe Whitehead. The year was
1910. Georg and Agathe both came from upper-class Austrian
families. He was a talented 30-year-old naval captain. She was
the granddaughter of an English inventor. Looking forward to
a bright and comfortable future, the couple got married, settled
down, and began to raise a family.
Robert Whitehead (1823–1905)
Agathe Whitehead’s grandfather, Robert, left home
at the age of 14 to become an apprentice to an engineer.
He worked in France and Italy before the Austrian government
hired him in the 1850s. Whitehead’s task was to develop a
new weapon for warships — a torpedo. Although torpedoes
had been used previously, Whitehead’s was the first to be
self-propelled. This innovation proved popular, and by 1881
Whitehead had sold torpedoes to numerous countries,
including Britain, Russia, France, Germany, and Argentina.
3

Over the next ten years, Agathe and Georg had seven
children — five girls and two boys. From the start, music
played an important part in the family life of the Trapps.
Both Georg and Agathe played
musical instruments and
nurtured a love of music in
their children. The family
often gathered together in
the evening to play music.
The children learned not only to
sing, but also to play several different
instruments, including the piano, the
guitar, the violin, and the accordion.
Without knowing it, Georg and Agathe
were laying the groundwork for their children’s
future fame as the Trapp Family Singers. It was not a
career that they dreamed of or desired for their children.
Music was simply something they enjoyed and appreciated.
Georg Ritter von Trapp
During World War I, 1914–1918, Georg von Trapp
was a submarine commander. He became known
predominantly as the navy’s “torpedo ace” for his success
in sinking enemy ships. After the war, the government gave
him the title of Ritter, similar to the title of knight, and
he became a national hero. He retired after World War I.
4

Then tragedy struck. Agathe contracted scarlet fever.
Today, scarlet fever can be controlled with antibiotics, but
back then it had a tendency to turn deadly. The doctors
could not save Agathe, and she died in 1922.
The Trapp family home was now filled with sadness and
constant reminders of the lost Agathe. Georg decided to move
the family to a large new home near Salzburg, Austria. He
hoped that the new surroundings would help him and the
children to heal.
Once there, Georg found several governesses to help
take care of the children. But they could not fill the emptiness
Agathe’s death created. That would change when the captain
began searching for a tutor for one of his daughters and hired
a young woman named Maria. In the years to come, she would
not only help the family heal, but also make them famous.
The Trapp family lived in Austria, a nation in central Europe.
5

1936: Trapp Family wins first
place at Salzburg Music Festival.
1927: Georg and Maria marry.
1922: Agathe dies of scarlet fever.
1910: Georg
von Trapp marries
Agathe Whitehead.
1926: Georg von
Trapp hires Maria
Kutschera as a tutor.
1929: The Great
Depression begins.
Meet Maria Kutschera
Maria understood what it meant to lose a parent.
Her own mother died when Maria was two. Her father was
more interested in traveling than raising his daughter, so he left
her with elderly relatives. She grew up in a strict household, with
no other children to play with and without any religious training.
It was only by chance that Maria discovered religion and
wound up at the convent where Captain von Trapp would find
her. As the story goes, one Sunday, while she was in college,
Maria decided to go to a concert. Instead, she accidentally
found herself attending a Catholic service. According to Maria,
she was “overwhelmed” by the service and had a religious
awakening. After graduation, she went to the convent and spent
6

1939: World War II starts; the Trapps
leave, then return to, the United States.
1947: Georg dies.
1956: Trapp Family Singers
hold their last concert.
1965: The movie The Sound
of Music is released.
1987: Maria dies.
1949: Maria publishes her first book.
1942-1944: The Trapps buy Vermont
farm; Maria starts music center.
1938: Nazis control Austria;
the Trapps flee to New York.
Maria and Georg
(center) made
beautiful music
with Georg’s
seven children.
7

two years preparing to become a nun. Although Maria was
happy at the convent, her health suffered due to the lack
of exercise and fresh air.
Enter Captain Georg von Trapp. In 1926, his search for
a tutor for his 12-year-old daughter brought him to Maria’s
convent. The nuns thought Maria would make a good tutor.
She was trained as a teacher, and they
felt the change might improve her
health. Maria agreed, but planned to
return to the convent after 10 months.
However, things didn’t work out
the way she intended. Maria fell in love
with all of the children, and the children and Georg fell in love
with her. In 1927, Captain von Trapp asked Maria to marry him.
Although Maria wasn’t sure she wanted to leave her calling as a
nun, she ultimately said yes. So, at the age of 22, Maria married
the 47-year-old captain and became stepmother to his seven
children. Over the next four years, two more daughters were born.
The Trapp Family Singers Are Born
Even after Agathe’s death, Georg continued to bring
the children together to sing and enjoy each other’s company.
Maria also loved to sing and joined the musical gatherings.
Maria taught the children new and more complex songs.
Members of the family sang different parts in harmony.
They discovered that they had all the voices needed to form
a choir. At that time, however, they had no thought of singing
in public.
8

The Great Depression
The Great Depression is the worldwide economic collapse
that began in 1929 and did not end until 1940. It was the
longest and worst economic crisis ever experienced by industrialized
countries. It began with the 1929 stock market crash in the
United States. Businesses closed and banks failed, resulting in
many people losing their entire life’s savings. The value of money
itself decreased, and the demand for goods declined.
But the Great Depression was not limited to the United
States alone. The very structure of world trade collapsed, causing
the value of money in other countries to decline. Europe was
hit particularly hard, and millions of people there were also left
unemployed.
Unemployment in Europe
Country 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933
Austria 225,000 239,000 304,000 417,000 456,000
Belgium 28,000 42,000 207,000 350,000 383,000
Germany 2,484,000 3,041,000 4,744,000 6,034,000 5,599,000
Sweden 44,000 42,000 73,000 99,000 121,000
United
Kingdom
1,204,000 1,694,000 2,666,000 2,660,000 2,821,000
This chart shows the number of people without jobs in several European
countries during the Great Depression. Which nation had the greatest
number of unemployed citizens?
9

All that changed in the mid-1930s. Much of the world,
including the United States, was in the midst of the Great
Depression. Businesses and banks closed, and millions upon
millions of men and women were out of work. Families
struggled to pay the rent and to put food on the table.
When the National Bank of Austria failed, Captain von
Trapp lost most of his wealth. The family had to find new ways
to make ends meet.
Maria suggested they turn the family into a group
of professional singers. Georg worried about the children
becoming performers, but he reluctantly agreed. Father Wasner,
a priest and family friend, became their conductor. In 1936,
the Trapp Family Chorus won a competition at the Salzburg
Music Festival. Soon afterwards, they were invited to perform
throughout Europe.
Escape from the Nazis
Shortly after their new career
began, the Trapp family came into
conflict with a rising political power
in Europe. The German people had
elected Adolf Hitler as chancellor.
As head of the Nazi Party, Hitler
The Austrian flag
began to rule as a dictator and
promised to return Germany to its previous power and glory.
As part of his plan, Hitler decided to take control of
Germany’s neighboring countries. He led troops into Austria in
1938. The Nazis took over the government and arrested many
10

Austrian political leaders. Tensions rose. Captain von Trapp
was one of many Austrians who opposed the Nazi takeover.
Most people, however, were afraid to stand up to Hitler and his
brutal police force.
The Nazis wanted to win Captain von Trapp over to their
side because he was a war hero and torpedo expert. He could
be of great use to them. So, they offered him an important
command in the German navy. The oldest Trapp son wanted
to be a doctor; the Nazis promised the Captain that he would
get a good job. Hitler even invited the family to sing at his
birthday party.
Hitler’s Secret Police
The police force of Nazi Germany was called the
Gestapo (guh SHTAH poh). The Gestapo arrested anyone they
suspected of disloyalty to their country. No one was safe from
arrest. The Gestapo brutally interrogated and tortured their
victims. Their terror tactics instilled fear throughout Germany
and its conquered territories. One branch of the Gestapo was
responsible for deporting millions of Jews to death camps.
When World War II ended, many Nazi leaders, including those
from the Gestapo, were convicted as war criminals.
11

Georg von Trapp refused all these honors and the money
and prestige that they would bring. The Trapp family also
refused to fly the Nazi flag at their home when Hitler came
to Salzburg. As time went on, the family realized that they
could no longer live under Hitler’s rule. The Nazis threatened
the freedoms that they valued most.
If the Trapps left Austria, they likely would lose their
home and remaining wealth. They would probably never be
able to return, and their friends would never see them again.
They would have only each other to rely on. In spite of these
sacrifices, they knew that they had to plan their escape.
Nazi police march through an Austrian city in 1938.
Townspeople had to give them the Nazi salute as they passed.
12

Maria managed to book a contract for a three-month
concert tour in the United States. In June 1938, the Trapps and
Father Wasner boarded a train near their estate. They took only
what they could easily carry. The group traveled across the Alps
to safety in Italy and then gave concerts across Europe.
In September, they sailed to New York. Maria’s third child,
a son, was born in Pennsylvania in January 1939.
After six months, the family had to leave the United States
because their visas had expired. They made a brief concert tour
through northern Europe. Then, they were able to return to
New York, arriving in October 1939. By then, World War II was
underway. The Trapp family had escaped just in time.
The Trapp Home in Austria
When the Trapps left Austria, they wanted to sell their
home to a religious order. Instead, the Nazis took it over as a
headquarters for their secret police. After the war, the estate
became a college for Catholic priests. Some members of the
family visited their former home when they returned to the
Salzburg Music Festival in 1950.
13

Life in America
Like many immigrants, the
Trapp family had a difficult time
adjusting to life in a new country.
They had to learn to speak and
sing in English. They even had to
change the clothes they wore. For their
first few years in America, they had no
permanent home. They lived most of the time
in the bus that took them to concerts around the country.
The war also brought about changes in the family
singing group. The two older sons left to serve in the United
States military. One son never returned to singing because he
preferred to work as a doctor. The two youngest daughters
joined the group when they turned 12 years old.
Gradually the family’s life improved. They gave concerts
and made recordings of classical music and folk songs. To her
credit, Maria hired skilled people to manage and publicize the
group’s work. Over time, the Trapp Family Singers gained a
wide audience.
In 1942, the Trapps purchased a farm in Stowe, Vermont.
The family was thrilled to have their own home again. They
worked together to build a bigger house, plant gardens, and
learn how to make maple syrup. In 1944, Maria realized her
dream of starting a music center. This summer music camp was
another way for the family to share its love of music and earn
income at the same time.
14

Maria and the children eventually became American
citizens. While the Trapps clearly loved their new country,
they did not forget their homeland. Like many European
nations, Austria was in terrible shape after World War II.
The Trapps established a relief fund to send hundreds of
thousands of pounds of food and clothing to needy Austrians.
The family’s life changed again when Captain von Trapp
died in 1947. After his death, the family opened a guest lodge
on their Vermont farm. The lodge became — and still is —
a popular tourist attraction.
In 1965, the movie The Sound of Music brought the story of the Trapp
family to the big screen. Julie Andrews (fourth from left) played Maria,
and Christopher Plummer (holding guitar) played Georg.
15

The Trapp Family Singers continued to perform, but the
group now included many members who were not part of the
family. Their last concerts were held in 1956. By then, many
of the family members wanted to focus on other aspects of
their lives. Some focused on the lodge. Others worked as dairy
farmers, teachers, and missionaries.
Becoming Famous
Maria was considered a forceful woman who seemed to
have endless energy. To help drum up singing engagements,
Maria wrote her first book — The Story of the Trapp Family
Singers. It was published in 1949. To Maria’s surprise, the
book became a bestseller. About seven years later, a German
filmmaker asked Maria if he could buy the rights to the book.
The family needed money at the time, so Maria sold the rights
to their story for $9,000. Neither she nor the family would earn
any more money from the film — or those that followed.
A few years later, American producers bought the rights
to the story from the Germans. The Americans turned the book
into a successful Broadway musical, aptly named The Sound
of Music. In 1965, the film version won an Academy Award for
Best Picture. Over the years, The Sound of Music has earned
hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Trapp family, unfortunately, did not share in any of
that money. The movie did, however, make the Trapps famous
around the world. It also turned the lodge in Vermont into a
huge tourist attraction.
16

Real Life vs. Reel Life
The Sound of Music remains
popular worldwide. Millions of
people know about the Trapp
family from the film. The screen
version doesn’t tell the exact events
that happened, but it does tell a
parallel story to the real-life events.
For example, the movie shows
the family’s escape from the Nazis
shortly after Georg and Maria are
married. In reality, they had been
married for almost 11 years before
they fled Austria. Here are some
This photograph shows
a scene from the movie,
other discrepancies between
The Sound of Music.
the true story and the film:
• Maria was hired as a tutor to one
child, not as a governess to all of the children.
• The family had 10 children, not 7.
• The names and ages of the children were altered.
• The Trapps didn’t climb the Alps to escape to
Switzerland. They traveled to Italy by train before
leaving for the United States.
• The Trapps’ priest was their musical director, not
a musical promoter as shown in the movie.
• The real-life Maria was known to have a bad temper,
while the fictional Maria is always sweet.
17

Finally, there was one aspect of the movie that the
Trapp family was genuinely unhappy with — the portrayal
of Georg. In the movie, he is strict and rather cold toward
his children. His family describes him as a truly kind, warm,
and gentle father, who was very concerned about the welfare
of his children.
The Trapp Family Today
After a full life, Maria von Trapp died at the Trapp Family
Lodge in 1987. In 2006, six of the ten children were still living,
most of them in Vermont. The family still runs the lodge, which
is now a large resort and conference center. There are also four
great-grandchildren of Georg von Trapp who perform and
record as The von Trapp Children.
The legacy of the Trapp Family Singers lives on.
They continue to support the things they love — music,
Austrian culture, and the environment. Perhaps most
importantly, their story
continues to inspire
people. It shows what
a family can do under
difficult circumstances
if they have courage
and work together for
a common goal.
18

Responding
TARGET SKILL Fact and Opinion What are
some facts and opinions related to The Trapp
Family Singers? Copy the chart below. In the
first column, write facts from the text. Write a
related opinion in the second column.
Facts
The Trapp children
learned to sing and
play instruments.
?
?
Opinions
Families are closer
when they make
music together.
?
?
Write About It
Text to Self Think of an event from your life
that could be a scene in a movie. Write two
paragraphs telling what happens in the movie
version. Since this is a fictional narrative, change
some details to make the event more interesting!
19

TARGET VOCABULARY
aptly
aspect
credit
genuinely
innovation
parallel
predominantly
tendency
tension
welfare
EXPAND YOUR VOCABULARY
apprentice
chancellor
discrepancies
interrogated
ultimately
TARGET SKILL Fact and Opinion Decide whether
an idea can be proved or is a feeling or belief.
Write About It
TARGET STRATEGY Summarize Briefly tell the
important parts of the text in your own words.
In a famous quotation, Aung San Suu Kyi said,
GENRE “Please Biography use your tells freedom about to events promote in a ours.” person’s life,
written What by freedoms another do person. you value most? Why? Write
a letter to the editor of a Burmese newspaper
explaining the freedoms you have and why they
are important to you.
20

Level: X
DRA: 60
Genre:
Biography
Strategy:
Summarize
Skill:
Fact and Opinion
Word Count: 2,961
6.1.5
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