The Captain, a deeply proud man, was perturbed at his
children earning from singing, as this was a sign of "d'classe". Although Maria and Father Wasner were helping the children
to reach greater heights with their singing voices, Captain
von Trapp was a greater influence, as his distinguished name added an unofficial "seal of approval" to the group. During
their performances, the Captain would watch from backstage,
and would appear on stage to introduce the group, then
at the end of the performances to take a bow.
The movie version of the family's story gave a typical
Hollywood spin on the facts, and, as we can see, it
portrayed the story through "rose-tinted glasses", omitting
much of their struggles and challenges. One major challenge
the film took a spin on was the rise of the Nazis as the story
progressed, until, by the climax, Germany has Anschluss
with Austria. However, while the movie portrayed the Nazis
as pantomime villains, the reality was much scarier. In 1938, after the Anschluss, Captain von Trapp told his family about what was happening, saying: "We are standing at the open grave of Austria." The family decided that to leave Austria
was for the best. For Maria, it was an emotional upheaval to leave her home, but also a physical upheaval, as she was at
the time still pregnant with her third child (and the Captain's tenth), Johannes. The family had to leave all of their
belongings behind as they ventured on a hike to the
mountains, with only small backpacks. While anyone seeing
this would have believed it was just one of the family's regular walks, they were in fact planning their escape from Austria,
over the alps.
They finally arrived in a small Italian village, safe for the time being. Maria said in her memoirs: "Overnight we had become poor, we were refugees. A refugee not only has no country,
he also has no rights. He is a displaced person. At times he
feels like a parcel which has been mailed and is moved from place to place." To survive, the family once again decided to sing, and soon they moved from small performances at
weddings, to acclaim in concert halls.
The children continued to perform, and loved returning to their home, which they rented out to skiers, while on tour. However, the strain of constant touring began to toll on the children. Johannes von Trapp, the youngest of the children, who is now the President of the Trapp Family Lodge, says: "Those years
that we sang were not easy. We travelled around the world
and gave many concerts. I didn't think it was so hard. I was
ten, twelve years old at the time, but, for my older brothers
and sisters, it must have been difficult."
Captain von Trapp sadly passed away on May 30th, 1947, and
it was then that some of the children began to openly rebel against their constant life of touring, as they wanted to enjoy life, find romance. Maria's own eldest child, Rosmarie, ran away from home, but was returned by Father Wasner (who had travelled with the family when they left Austria). After second-youngest child Johanna ran away from home and got married,
the rest of the children gradually began to forge lives of their own, and the singers stopped their hectic touring in 1956.
