The other day I watched The Sound of Music (1965) on TV, commercials and all. I couldn't help being drawn in, even though I've seen the movie more times than I can count.

This time as I watched, I wondered more and more about the family being portrayed by Christopher Plummer, Julie Andrews, and those seven children with perfect teeth.

Were they really like that? Is the story of the novice nun and her handsome aristocrat true? And what became of the family after their escape from Austria?

Thanks to a meticulously researched article by Joan Gearin in The Prologue, online magazine of the National Archives, I found answers to all my questions. I'll share some here, but for the full story, follow the link below.

I'll present the highlights in the form of a True/False quiz. If you haven't seen The Sound of Music, you may as well stop reading now. But, I wonder, how many movie fans above the age of 13 haven't seen The Sound of Music at least once?!

True or False: The VonTrapps lived in Austria and fled the country when the Nazis took over in 1938.

True: The Nazis took over Austria in March 1938, and the VonTrapp family, residents of Salzburg, left the country in June 1938. They did not, however, sneak out of the Salzburg Music Festival and walk over the Alps into Switzerland carrying their luggage.

They openly took a train to Italy, accompanied by a music agent (not "Max Detweiler"), and a secretary. From Italy they went to England. From London they went to the United States for a concert tour in Pennsylvania.

True or False: VonTrapp applied to the convent for someone to look after his seven children, whom he disciplined like Prussian soldiers.

False: VonTrapp wanted someone to tutor one of his daughters, also named Maria, who was ill with scarlet fever. He had other servants to look after the rest of the tribe. He did have seven children from his first marriage, but their birth order and names were: Rupert, Agathe, Maria, Werner, Hedwig, Johanna, and Martina. (Not Liesl, Louisa, Friedrich, Kurt, Brigitta, Marta, and Gretl).

The children were upset by the way their father was portrayed in the first part of the movie. In reality he was loving and demonstrative before Maria joined the family. They already knew how to sing and their father sang with them. If anyone was not to be messed with, it was Maria. According to the children, she had unpredictable outbursts of anger that left everyone trembling.

True or False: As soon as Maria and her husband returned from their honeymoon, they won the Salzburg Music Festival and fled with the seven children.

False: The VonTrapp family fled Austria in 1938. Maria joined the family to teach daughter Maria in 1926. After about nine months, VonTrapp fell in love with her and proposed marriage. According to Maria, she was not in love with him when they married in November 1927, but learned to love him.

The singing family won the Salzburg Music Festival in 1936. When they fled Austria in 1938, Maria was pregnant with her third child. VonTrapp's tenth child, a boy, was born in Philadelphia, an American citizen.

True or False: Baron VonTrapp was a titled aristocrat who had to leave a home that had been in his family for generations.

False: One of the most poignant things for me in watching the movie was the thought that VonTrapp was forced to leave his family home and that Maria was cheated of the enjoyment of presiding in luxury over a household of servants, at least for a little while. The facts do not support my little romance.

VonTrapp was a naval officer. He was awarded the title "baron" for valiant service in World War I. The title, "Ritter" in German, was the equivalent of Elton John's "knighthood." After his first wife died, troubled by reminders of happier days, VonTrapp sold his property in what is now Croatia. and moved the children to a villa near Salzburg.

Maria had 11 years to enjoy the "luxury" of her husband's estate, but how luxurious their lives were after the stock market crash and world depression is debatable. It was because of reduced circumstances that they decided to sing for money. Maria had already dismissed most of the servants and started taking in boarders.

I still love the movie, but I like knowing how much is true and how much was made up.

For more facts about the VonTrapp Family, read the Gearin article.