The Trapps Are Coming!!!

In the next few weeks, I'll try and post some news accounts of the Trapps' first months in the United States. Let's begin with a UP story that appeared in 1937 announcing the family's upcoming tour of the United States:

Corpus Christi (TX) Caller Times - October 15, 1937

The same story ran in newspapers in Indiana, Utah  and New York. 

In fact, the first US tour by the Von Trapps was arranged after their Salzburg and Vienna concerts in 1937. According to Agathe's memoir:

A freelance agent named Nelly Walter, who had heard us sing in Vienna, urged her friend Charlie Wagner from America to listen to us during the festival. Mr. Wagner, a prominent concert manager in New York City, arrived at our door, asking to hear us sing. We gave Mr. Wagner a little recital, and when we finished, he asked us if we could sing the Brahms "Lullaby" for him. Of course, we could, and by the time we sang the last note, there were tears in this distinguished man's eyes.

We'll return to Wagner and Walter a bit later. But for now back to London.  The concert at the Austrian Embassy was attended by Queen Mary. According to Agathe, the Queen "listened to us, said a few friendly words, and then left." The Austrian ambassador at the time was the unhappily named Georg von Franckenstein. After the Anschluss, Franckenstein, like the Trapps, abandoned his native country. He accepted British citizenship and a knighthood.

During the war, von Franckenstein was an agent for the OSS. He was urged to seek the presidency of the Second Austrian Republic after the war. He declined and lived in England until his death in 1953.