At 86, West Mt. Airy resident Barbara Stechow Harris vividly recalls her teenage years touring with the world-famous Trapp Family Singers, an experience she's chronicled in her upcoming memoir, "Sixteen Going On Seventeen: On Tour with the Trapp Family Singers." Set to be published by Excel Publishers in mid-October, Harris's book offers a behind-the-scenes look at the renowned singing group that inspired the beloved musical "The Sound of Music." 

Harris's journey with the Trapp Family Singers began in 1953 when, as a 15-year-old high school junior from Oberlin, Ohio, she attended a music camp run by the Trapp family. The following Christmas, she returned to the Trapp Family Lodge, a ski resort in Stowe, Vermont, that still flourishes today. It was founded in 1950 by the Trapp family after they fled Austria following the Nazi invasion in 1938.

In the spring of 1954, Maria von Trapp, having heard Barbara sing, sent her a letter with an unexpected offer. "Mother Trapp said in the note that her daughter Lorli had gotten married and would no longer be singing with the family," Barbara recalled. "She asked me to take Lorli's place. I was just out of high school at age 16. So I did."

For the next two years, Harris toured extensively with the singers, who were the world's most successful singing act at the time, even before the movie came out. They performed 105 concerts in three months across New Zealand, as well as numerous shows in Australia, the South Seas, and throughout the United States.

Robert Harris, Barbara's husband of 51 years, is still impressed by the adventurous nature of her youth. "I don't know if I would have let my daughter at 16 or 17 go traveling around the world," he said, "flying in a prop plane across the Pacific Ocean and stopping at an atoll to refuel."

The experience exposed Harris to a world far beyond what she describes as a "protected" upbringing in Oberlin, where her mother was a linguist and her father a professor of art history at Oberlin College. "When we toured the South, I saw things I never saw before, like hurricanes and separate bathrooms," she recalled, touching on the racial segregation she witnessed during their Southern tour.

Harris's connection to the Trapp family extends beyond her touring days. When the von Trapp family first came to the U.S. in 1938, they lived for a year on Hortter Street in West Mt. Airy and were members of St. Therese of the Child Jesus Church at 6611 Ardleigh St., a shrine to St. Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897), which the Philadelphia Archdiocese closed in 2017.

While Julie Andrews portrayed an almost angelic Maria in the movie, Harris and others, such as biographer William Anderson in "The World of the Trapp Family" (1998), paint a more complex picture of the real Maria von Trapp.

"Mother Trapp was a tough cookie," Harris said, referring to Maria von Trapp, the family matriarch immortalized by Julie Andrews in the 1965 film. "Very seldom did mother Trapp soften up. Only when she was with the bishops, then she was charming. Otherwise, no. I had run-ins with mother Trapp along the way. She finally figured out that I was valuable enough for her to overlook some things."

Harris is the last survivor of four non-Trapps who sang with the ensemble. In the movie, there were seven children in the Trapp family. In real life, those seven were the offspring of father Georg (1880-1947) and his first wife, Agathe Whitehead von Trapp (1891-1922). Georg had three more children with Maria (1905-1987), whom he married in 1927. Only one of their children, Johannes, now 85, is still alive.

Interestingly, Father Georg Trapp earned the honorific "von" by being an outstanding submarine commander. It was not inherited, and while family members individually chose whether to keep it or not, the ensemble dropped the "von" from their title, which was simply the Trapp Family Singers.

After her time with the Trapp Family Singers, Harris pursued a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Germany for a year. She later earned a master's degree in musicology and taught German in elementary school in Lansing, Michigan, for 20 years, retiring at 67.

Throughout her life, Harris has maintained a connection to her musical past. For many years, she would do programs about the Trapp family, wearing a dirndl, a traditional Austrian outfit for women, and singing songs from "The Sound of Music." She also sang at weddings, played with small ensembles, and sang in a choir up to age 75.

Harris's own family history is noteworthy. They came to the U.S. in 1936 from Germany, having to leave because her father's mother was Jewish. Harris, who played the flute and recorder, was a music major at Oberlin, where she sang in the school choir. "I never really considered myself a singer or a soloist," Harris said, "but I did have one solo song with the Trapp family on a record. I was Elsie in 'Yeoman of the Guard,' by Gilbert & Sullivan."

Harris and her husband moved to Philadelphia 11 years ago to be closer to their children. "We love Mt. Airy and Northwest Village Neighbors," she said. "It has put us in touch with some remarkable people." The couple has two children: Ben, 45, who lives in Philadelphia, and Susanna Harris Rea, 50, who lives in West Orange, NJ. "I was in labor with her on Labor Day 50 years ago," Barbara fondly recalled.

For more information, email bbbharris@aol.com. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.