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The truth about Colonel von Trapp
You know the guy I’m talking about. Fervent anti-Nazi who escaped Nazi occupied Austria by the skin of his teeth, and went on to be immortalized in the film classic, The Sound of Music.
The first time I heard the story about von Trapp’s connection to my clan was back in the sixties, on a family trip to visit an elderly Auntie in Sandusky. She spoke ruefully about a drive the family had taken to Vermont to visit the famous von Trapp cousins.
This was a couple of years after the film had made the von Trapps famous, and suddenly they went from being the von Trapp singers to being the von Trapp cousins.
Apparently things didn’t go that well once they got to Vermont. Legend has it that they had a brief encounter with a couple of the von Trapp children, who were by then middle aged grouches, and instead of being offered cake and coffee as they might expect from any reunion with long lost relations, were strongly encouraged to go back to Ohio and call ahead before undertaking another visit.
So where did Tante Alvina get the idea that the famous Colonel was family? Family lore has it that the history books have got the paternity of Georg Trapp right. But little Georg was the result of his tryst with a local gal whilst he was on a secondment to Berlin.
That local gal who treated the visiting officer from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to a leg-spread was the sister of my great grampa.
And by the way, apparently the families kept in touch, right up until the von Trapps moved to America and got famous.
And all that stuff about escaping over the hills by the skin of their teeth? Pure Hollywood hokum.
2012-11-23 00:43:59
Source: http://theviewfromfallingdowns.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-truth-about-colonel-von-trapp.html
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