Trapp, Maria Augusta, 1905-1987

Singer and matriach of von Trapp Family; inspiration for "The Sound of Music." Born Maria Augusta Kutschera on a train enroute to Vienna, Austria; she was raised as a socialist and atheist. Her attitude changed while in college, when she entered a crowded church believing she was about to hear a Bach concert, only to find that it was a sermon by a visiting Jesuit priest, Father Kronseder. In 1924, she entered the Nonnberg Benedictine Convent intending to become a nun, but in 1926, she was sent to become a governess at the home of a widowed retired Austrian Navy Captain, Georg Ritter von Trapp, with seven children. They quickly fell in love, and on November 26, 1927, they married.

During the Great Depression the family business failed; in 1936, Maria and family friend began the Trapp Family Singers, and they soon became well known when they received high honors at the 1936 Salzburg Music Festival. In 1938, Austria and Nazi Germany were united in the Anschluss (Union), at which the von Trapps made little secret that they were horrified at the rise of the Nazis. German dictator Adolph Hitler invited them to sing at his birthday celebration, but they declined. Georg also turned down the offer of a commission in the German Navy. With increased Nazi pressure to embrace the new regime, the family decided to leave Austria for the United States, arriving in early 1939.

In 1942, they purchased the old Gale Farm in Stowe, Vermont, which in 1950 became the Trapp Family Lodge. In 1950, at the urging of a family friend, Maria wrote the family story in the book, "The Story of the Trapp Family Singers" (1950), which eventually was turned into the successful Broadway musical by Rogers and Hammerstein (1959), and the movie, "The Sound of Music" (1965). In 1957, the Trapp Family Singers broke up. Maria and three of her children became missionaries in the South Pacific. After several years, she returned to Vermont, and managed the Trapp Family Lodge until her death in 1987, at the age of 82.