Letter from Baroness Maria Von Trapp to President Harry S. Truman, with a Reply from William D. Hassett

TRAPP FAMILY SINGERS [Letterhead] always see clearly what is the will of God and then be given enough grace and courage of heart to go ahead and do it. I don't know if you have ever heard our name. During the last few years we became pretty famous and popular as a singing Family, after having given more than 600 concerts all over the United States. Our two grown-up sons are with the American Army fighting on the front in Europe and we are living on our 600 acre farm in Vermont, where we do almost all the farming ourselves and consider this our greatest happiness. The fact that you come from a farm yourself too makes us especially happy and gives us even more confidence in you and your undertakings. It is needless to say how pleased and honored we would be if we could offer you our services as a choir or as a source of information about our former homeland, Austria, if you ever wish to make use of them. We want to serve our newly adopted country, America, and its President to the very best of our ability always, and we want you to know that. May God bless and protect you, Yours faithfully, Baroness Maria von Trapp [handwritten] BARONESS MARIA VON TRAPP Ack 5-23-45 cmh 7 [lines above handwritten in upper right-hand corner] TRAPP FAMILY SINGERS (letterhead) April 13, 1945 Mr. Harry S. Truman President of the United States Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. President: It was with the greatest joy of heart that we read your message in the paper this noon, "Please pray for me, I really mean it." It made the deepest impression on us, and we do not want to lose any time in letting you know that we already started on the very first evening after you had taken your oath, to pray for our new President. From now on we shall do so faithfully every day and will include you and your intentions in our family prayers every morning and every night. We learned to appreciate the value of prayer after we had fled from our homeland, Austria, when it had become unbearable there after the invasion of 1937. When we came to this country, a large family of fourteen persons, we had only four dollars for all of us together. We did not know any English and had no friends here, but we had the firm belief that if we kept the first part of the promise, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God,---everything else will be added unto you," that God Almighty would keep the second part. Only this belief and our daily family prayer helped us to overcome all the obstacles of the first hard years, and we have learned this great lesson thoroughly: to look only and solely for what is the will of God at the present moment and then do it without fear and things will always turn out all right. Dear Mr. President, you are not elected by men but by God, Himself. You are not bound by promises to the ones who elected you nor to anybody but God Almighty alone. My husband and I and our ten children promise you today, in answer to your request, to say a special prayer twice a day in our family chapel when we are home, or in our family morning and evening prayers when we are on concert tour, that you may Mrs. Eben [handwritten in upper left corner, crossed out] BB [handwritten in upper left corner] 7 [handwritten in upper left corner, crossed out] May 22, 1945 P.P.F [stamped near date, above] 9-V [handwritten and circled] My dear Baroness von Trapp: The President asks me to thank you very much indeed for your thoughtfulness in writ- ing to him as you did, sending him that picture (xPP -> 9-P) [handwritten] of the Trapp Family. To know that he is being remembered in your prayers is indeed a source of added strength as he goes on with the new asks entrusted to him, and he is grateful. Very sincerely yours, WILLIAM D. HASSETT Secretary to the President Baroness Maria von Trapp, cmh Stowe, Vermont. Pictures transferred to the H.S.T.L. photograph collection 1-6-60 by H.C. [both lines handwritten]