Profile of Maria von Trapp on Famous Like Me

Maria von Trapp was born Maria Kutschera in Austria on January 26, 1905. She died on March 28, 1987. She was the matron of the Trapp Family Singers, and the story of her family's inception and their escape from the Nazis during World War II is the inspiration for the musical The Sound of Music.

While a nun in a convent in Salzburg, Maria was asked to nurse one of the seven children of widowed naval commander Georg Ritter von Trapp. Maria and Georg fell in love and were married in 1927 after she had relinquished her vows. Having lost their fortune to the Great Depression, the family aimed to turn their shared love of music into a career. After performing at a festival in 1935, they became a popular touring act. Shortly after the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, the family escaped to Italy and then to the United States. Calling themselves the Trapp Family Singers, the family — which now had ten children — became famous all over again, and were soon touring the world. They made their home at a farm in Stowe, Vermont, where they started a music camp.

Maria never intended to write anything of her life, but a friend persistently pleaded with her not to allow her story to be forgotten by others. She denied she had any writing skill whatsoever, but her friend was not to be put off and kept on asking her whenever they saw each other. Finally, one day, in desperation, Maria excused herself and went to her room for an hour to scribble a few pages about her life story, hoping to prove once and for all she was no writer. However, this displayed such natural writing talent that she reluctantly agreed to finish what she had started, and her jottings formed the basis of the first chapter of her memoirs. Her book, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, was a best-seller. It was made into two successful German films, and was later adapted into The Sound of Music, a phenomenally successful Broadway musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein, which later spawned an immensely popular US motion picture.

In 1957 the Trapp Family Singers disbanded and went their separate ways. Maria and three of her children became missionaries in the South Pacific. Maria then moved back to Vermont and managed the Trapp Family Lodge until her death in 1987 at the age of 82. Maria von Trapp, her husband, and Hedwig von Trapp (1917-1972), the fifth child of Georg and Agathe von Trapp, are interred in the family cemetery at the Lodge.

Maria von Trapp's granddaughter, Elisabeth von Trapp, is a singer whose concerts are an eclectic mixture of Gregorian chant, musical comedy, country and contemporary folk. In 2001 she secured permission to sing adaptations of Robert Frost's poetic work.

Four of the couple's great-grandchildren currently perform. News of them and their music is available on their web page, http://www.vontrappchildren.com/.

Books by Maria Augusta Trapp

• The Story of the Trapp Family Singers - Maria Augusta Trapp. Philadelphia, Lippincott 1949
• Around the Year with the Trapp Family - Maria Augusta Trapp. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1952 New York, Pantheon 1955
• A Family on Wheels: Further Adventures of the Trapp Family Singers - Maria Augusta Trapp with Ruth T. Murdoch. Philadelphia, Lippincott, c1959
• Yesterday, Today and Forever: The Religious Life of a Remarkable Family - Maria Augusta Trapp. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1952
• Maria - Maria von Trapp. Carol Stream, Ill., Creation House 1972
• Let Me Tell You About My Savior - Maria Von Trapp. Green Forest, AR : New Leaf Press, c2000

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