Maria von Trapp: Our Favorite Things
The Sound of Music is one of the most popular musical theater shows and classic feature-length movies of all time. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s songs throughout these productions are so well-loved that in countries from Australia to the United States to Sweden, people flock to concert venues like the Hollywood Bowl to attend a Sound of Music Sing Along.
Did you know that this all got started because of a book? In 1949, Maria von Trapp (1905-1987) wrote The Story of the Trapp Family Singers and it became a bestseller. The Sound of Music was inspired by Maria von Trapp’s record of the family’s unusually eventful life. She also wrote Yesterday, Today, and Forever and Around the Year with the Von Trapp Family.
The Trapp Family Lodge
After leaving Austria during WWII and singing and traveling together, the von Trapp family eventually settled in Stowe, Vermont. In time, they opened the Trapp Family Lodge (https://www.trappfamily.com). The lodge is still owned by members of the family and offers a few of everyone’s “favorite things” to do in the mountains, like hiking, cross country skiing, bird watching, and biking. There are also Trapp Family History tours during which you can hear all about the real life people who inspired The Sound of Music.
“It will be very interesting one day to follow the pattern of our life as it is spread out like a beautiful tapestry. As long as we live here we see only the reverse side of the weaving, and very often the pattern, with its threads running wildly, doesn’t seem to make sense. Someday, however, we shall understand. In looking back over the years, we can discover how a red thread goes through the pattern of our life: the Will of God.” — Maria von Trapp
The Trapp Family Lodge is the last literary home on our Vermont Author Adventures Trail.
Rebecca Blake Beech
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