Trapp, Maria Augusta, 1905-1987

Baroness[1][2][3] Maria Augusta von Trapp DHS (née Kutschera; 26 January 1905 – 28 March 1987) was the stepmother and matriarch of the Trapp Family Singers.[4][5] She wrote The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, which was published in 1949 and was the inspiration for the 1956 West German film The Trapp Family, which in turn inspired the 1959 Broadway musical The Sound of Music and its 1965 film version.[6][7]

Maria was born on 26 January 1905 to Augusta (née Rainer) and Karl Kutschera.[8] She was delivered on a train heading from her parents' village in Tyrol to a hospital in Vienna, Austria.[6]

Her mother died of pneumonia when she was two. Her father, grief-stricken, left Maria with his cousin (her foster mother) who had cared for Maria's half-brother after his mother died. Maria's father then traveled the world, although Maria would visit him upon occasion at his apartment in Vienna. When she was nine, her father died. Her foster mother's son-in-law, Uncle Franz, then became her guardian.[9]

Uncle Franz did not treat Maria well and punished her for things she did not do. (He later was found to be mentally ill.) This changed Maria from the shy child she was and, as a teenager, she became the "class cut-up", figuring she may as well have fun if she was going to get in trouble either way. Despite this change, Maria continued to get good grades.[9]

After graduating from high school at 15, Maria ran away to stay with a friend with the intent to become a tutor for children staying at nearby hotels. As she looked so young, no one took her seriously. Finally, a hotel manager asked her to be the umpire for a tennis tournament. Although she did not know what an umpire was and had never played tennis, she took the job.

From this job, she saved enough money to enter the State Teachers College for Progressive Education in Vienna, where she also received a scholarship.[9] She graduated from there at age 18, in 1923.

In 1924, she entered Nonnberg Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Salzburg, as a postulant intending to become a nun.[10]

Maria was asked to teach one of the seven children (Maria Franziska) of widowed naval commander Georg von Trapp in 1926, while she was still a schoolteacher at the abbey.[7][11] His wife, Agathe Whitehead, had died in 1922 from scarlet fever.[12] Eventually, Maria began to look after the other children (Rupert, Agathe, Werner, Hedwig, Johanna and Martina), as well.

Captain von Trapp saw how much she cared about his children and asked her to marry him, although he was 25 years her senior. She was frightened and fled back to Nonnberg Abbey to seek guidance from the mother abbess, who advised her that it was God's will that she should marry him. She then returned to the family and accepted the proposal. She wrote in her autobiography that she was very angry on her wedding day, both at God and at her husband, because what she really wanted was to be a nun. "I really and truly was not in love. I liked him but didn't love him. However, I loved the children, so in a way I really married the children. I learned to love him more than I have ever loved before or after."[13] They were married on 26 November 1927 and had three children together: Rosmarie (born 1929), Eleonore ("Lorli") (born 1931) and Johannes (born 1939).

Medical problems
The Von Trapps loved to hike and on one trip, they spent a night at a farmer's house. It was the next morning before the farmer informed them that two of his daughters had scarlet fever. Unfortunately, Georg's children Maria, Johanna, and Martina all caught it. They all recovered, but Maria's case, due to lack of hydration, resulted in more serious issues.[13] She began experiencing aches in her lower back and her doctor informed her that she had kidney stones and required an operation. Her stepmother Maria accompanied her to Vienna for the operation, which was a success. Nineteen stones were removed, but Maria's kidneys were a lifelong problem for her.[13]

Financial problems
The family met with financial ruin in 1935. Georg had transferred his savings from a bank in London to an Austrian bank run by a friend named Frau Lammer. Austria was experiencing economic difficulties during a worldwide depression because of the Crash of 1929 and Lammer's bank failed.[14] To survive, the Trapps discharged most of their servants, moved into the top floor of their home and rented out the other rooms. The archbishop sent Father Franz Wasner to stay with them as their chaplain and this began their singing career.[13]

Early Musical Career and Departure from Austria
Soprano Lotte Lehmann heard the family sing, and she suggested they perform at concerts. When the Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg heard them over the radio, he invited them to perform in Vienna.[15]

After performing at a festival in 1935, they became a popular touring act. They experienced life under the Nazis after the annexation of Austria by Germany in March 1938. Life became increasingly difficult as they witnessed hostility toward Jewish children by their classmates, the use of children against their parents, the advocacy of abortion both by Maria's doctor and by her son's school and finally by the induction of Georg into the German Navy. They visited Munich in the summer of 1938 and encountered Hitler at a restaurant. In September, the family left Austria and traveled to Italy, then to England and finally the United States. The Nazis made use of their abandoned home as Heinrich Himmler's headquarters.[13]

Initially calling themselves the "Trapp Family Choir", the von Trapps began to perform in the United States and Canada. They performed in New York City at The Town Hall on 10 December 1938.

Charles Wagner was their first booking agent, then they signed on with Frederick Christian Schang. Thinking the name "Trapp Family Choir" too churchy, Schang Americanized their repertoire and, following his suggestion, the group changed its name to the "Trapp Family Singers".[13] The family, which by then included ten children, was soon touring the world giving concert performances.[6] Alix Williamson served as the group's publicist for over two decades. After the war, they founded the Trapp Family Austrian Relief fund, which sent food and clothing to people impoverished in Austria.

In the 1940s, the family moved to Stowe, Vermont, where they ran a music camp when they were not touring. In 1944, Maria Augusta, Maria Franziska, Johanna, Martina, Hedwig and Agathe applied for U.S. citizenship, whereas Georg never applied to become a citizen. Rupert and Werner became citizens by serving during World War II, while Rosmarie and Eleonore became citizens by virtue of their mother's citizenship. Johannes was born in the United States in Philadelphia on the 17th January 1939 during a concert tour.[14] Georg von Trapp died in 1947 in Vermont after suffering lung cancer.

The family made a series of 78-rpm records for RCA Victor in the 1950s, some of which were later issued on RCA Camden LPs. There were also a few later recordings released on LPs, including some stereo sessions. In 1957, the Trapp Family Singers disbanded and went their separate ways. Maria and three of her children became missionaries in Papua New Guinea. In 1965, Maria moved back to Vermont to manage the Trapp Family Lodge, which had been named Cor Unum. She began turning over management of the lodge to her son Johannes, although she was initially reluctant to do so.[18] Hedwig returned to Austria and worked as a teacher in Umhausen.

The Trapp Family Singers was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.[19]

Death
Maria von Trapp died of heart failure on 28 March 1987 at 82 in Morrisville, Vermont, three days following surgery.[20] She is interred in the family cemetery at the lodge, along with her husband and five of her step-children.

Singer and matriach of von Trapp Family; inspiration for "The Sound of Music." Wife of Captain George Ritter von Trapp, a story based on their lives was made famous in the musical film, "The Sound of Music" (1965), in which her role was played by Julie Andrews. Born Maria Augusta Kutschera on a train enroute to Vienna, Austria, her mother died when she was just two years old. Her father left her with a cousin, so that he could travel, and she was raised as a socialist and atheist, becoming cynical towards all religions. 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. Caught up in the crowd so that she couldn't leave, she soon found herself caught up in his words. At the end of his sermon, she grabbed his elbow demanding, "Do you believe all this?" They got together afterwards to discuss religion, and soon she converted to Christianity. 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 (the Captain's first wife, Agathe, had died of scarlet fever in 1922). They quickly fell in love, and on November 26, 1927, they married, with Maria becoming the stepmother of his seven children: Maria, Rupert, Agathe, Werner, Hedwig, Johanna and Martina. Two years later, Rosemarie was born, and in 1931, Eleonore was born. During the Great Depression, when the family business failed, Georg started a chicken farm to support his family. In 1936, Maria and family friend Monsignor Franz Wasner 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. They initially settled down in Merion, Pennsylvania, where their last child, Johannes von Trapp, was born. In 1942, they purchased the old Gale Farm in Stowe, Vermont, which in 1950 became the Trapp Family Lodge, offering guests sweeping mountain views in an Austrian style main lodge. Georg von Trapp died in May 1947, and Maria became the head of the family. 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 and went their separate ways. 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.