Maria was purportedly born on 26 January 1905 to Karl and Augusta (née Rainer) Kuczera.[8][9] She claimed to have been delivered on a train on the night of the 25th, during her mother's return from her homeland of Tyrol to their family residence in Vienna, Austria.[10][6] She was baptized into the Catholic Church on the 29th within the Alservorstadt parish and maternity hospital.[11]
Her father was a hotel commissionaire,[8] born in Vienna,[12] the son of Josef Kučera from a Moravian village, Vídeň.[13][14] Karl was first married in Graz to Klara Rainer in 1887.[15] The couple had a son Karl in 1888 before Klara's death a few months later.[16][17] Maria's father remained a widower until he remarried to Klara's younger sister, Augusta, in 1903.[18] Augusta died of pulmonary tuberculosis when Maria was nearly 10 months old.[19] Maria's grief-stricken father left her with his cousin (and foster mother) in Kagran,[10] who also cared for Maria's half-brother Karl after his mother Klara had died. Maria's father then traveled the world, although Maria would visit him upon occasion at his apartment in Vienna. He changed the spelling of their surname to Kutschera in 1914,[11] dying at home later that year.[10] Her foster mother's son-in-law, Uncle Franz, then became her guardian.[20]
Uncle Franz maltreated Maria and punished her for things she did not do; he was later found to be mentally ill. This changed Maria from a shy child into the teenage "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.[20]
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. Because she looked so young, no one took her seriously. Finally, a hotel manager asked her to be 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.[20] She graduated from there at age 18 in 1923.
Captain von Trapp saw how much she cared about his children and asked her to marry him, although he was 25 years her senior. Frightened, she fled back to Nonnberg Abbey to seek guidance from the mother abbess, Virgilia Lütz, who advised her it was God's will that she should marry him. She then returned to the family and accepted his proposal. She wrote in her autobiography that she was very angry on her wedding day, both at God and at her new husband, because she really wanted 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."[24] They married at Nonnberg Abbey on 26 November 1927 and had three children together: Rosmarie (1929–2022), Eleonore ("Lorli") (1931–2021) and Johannes (born 1939).[25]
Medical problems
The von Trapps enjoyed hiking. On one outing, they stayed overnight at a farmer's house. The next morning, they were informed that Maria and two of Georg's daughters, Johanna and Martina, had scarlet fever. Johanna and Martina recovered, but the older Maria developed kidney stones due to dehydration. Her stepdaughter, Maria Franziska, accompanied her to Vienna for a successful surgery, but Maria experienced lifelong kidney problems.[24]
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 Auguste Caroline Lammer. Austria was experiencing economic difficulties during a worldwide depression because of the Crash of 1929, and Lammer's bank failed.[26] To survive, the Trapps dismissed most of their servants, moved into the top floor of their house, and rented out the other rooms. The Archbishop of Salzburg, Sigismund Waitz, sent Father Franz Wasner to stay with them as their chaplain and this began their singing career.[24]
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, and finally by the extension of an offer for Georg to join the German Navy.[28] Maria's doctor also encouraged her to abort a fetus considered unviable due to her physical condition, the child later being born and named Johannes von Trapp. They visited Munich in the summer of 1938 and encountered Hitler at a restaurant, Maria later recounting that "For … forty minutes we had a first-class opportunity to look at the Messiah of the Third Reich … One couldn't stand it too long, however. Knowing who he was, it was too depressing." In September, the family fled Austria for Italy via train, then to England and finally the United States. The Nazis made use of their abandoned home as Heinrich Himmler's headquarters.[24]
There was something unusually lovable and appealing about the modest, serious singers of this little family aggregation as they formed a close semicircle about their self-effacing director for their initial offering, the handsome Mme. von Trapp in simple black, and the youthful sisters garbed in black and white Austrian folk costumes enlivened with red ribbons. It was only natural to expect work of exceeding refinement from them, and one was not disappointed in this.[6][30]
Trapp Family Singers preparing for a concert in Boston in 1941. Maria is the third from left, in a dark suit.
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".[24] The family, which by then included all 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 the 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 17 January 1939 during a concert tour.[26] 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.[31] Hedwig returned to Austria and worked as a teacher in Umhausen.
Death
Maria von Trapp died of heart failure on 28 March 1987, aged 82, in Morrisville, Vermont, three days following surgery.[32] She is interred in the family cemetery at the lodge, along with her husband and five of her step-children.
The family cemetery in 2022. Maria's grave is on the left
1962 – Siena Medal – an award given by Theta Phi Alpha women's fraternity to "an outstanding woman to recognize her for her endurance and great accomplishment." The medal is the highest honor the organization bestows upon a non-member and is named after Saint Catherine of Siena.
Maria von Trapp's book, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, published in 1949, was a best-seller. It was made into two successful German / Austrian films:
Maria von Trapp made a cameo appearance in the movie version of The Sound of Music (1965). For an instant, she, her daughter Rosmarie, and Werner's daughter Barbara can be seen walking past an archway during the song, "I Have Confidence", at the line, "I must stop these doubts, all these worries / If I don't, I just know I'll turn back."[37]
^Gearin, Joan. "Movie vs. Reality". The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration – Winter 2005, Vol. 37, No. 4 National Archives. Retrieved 27 February 2015. Georg von Trapp, born in 1880, became a national hero as a captain in the Austrian navy during World War I. He commanded submarines with valor and received the title of "Ritter" and subsequently "baron") as a reward for his heroic accomplishments.
^Mead, Wendy (16 July 2020). "Maria von Trapp". Biography. Retrieved 1 January 2022.
^ abTrapp Family Lodge. "The von Trapp Chronology". Archived from the original on 30 August 2011. Retrieved 20 September 2014. Maria was chosen by the Mother Abbess to help the Baron Georg von Trapp with his seven children and tutor young Maria who had contracted scarlet fever.
^ abcdeTrapp, Maria Augusta (1953). The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. Doubleday. ISBN978-0-385-02896-7. After Armistice day when the boys [Maria's sons] were still in Europe, they had gone for a short visit to Salzburg and found that our old home there had been confiscated by Heinrich Himmler; that it had been made his headquarters for the last period of that cruel war; that the chapel had been turned into a beer parlour; and what had been Father Wasner's room had become Hitler's quarters when he came there.
^ abGearin, Joan. "The Real Story of the von Trapp Family". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved 5 January 2009. Maria Kutschera and Georg von Trapp married in 1927. They had three children together.
^ ab"Family Choir". Time magazine. 19 December 1938. Archived from the original on 15 April 2009. Retrieved 7 January 2011. When Soprano Lotte Lehmann heard them, she suggested concerts. When Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg heard them over the radio, he invited them to sing in Vienna. Soon the von Trapps were touring the whole map of Europe.
^"Sound of admiration". Newspapers.com. Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Associated Press. 14 July 1997. p. A6. Retrieved 28 November 2023. After Hitler invaded Austria, von Trapp was offered a position in the German navy. He refused...
^The "seven young singing von Trapps" ranged in age from 16 to 27 and were not young children.
^ ab"Group Heard in Choral Works of Five Centuries in Its First Appearance Here". New York Times. 11 December 1938. Retrieved 5 January 2009. An intriguing array of choral selections, culled from the music of the last five centuries, and representative works for the early vertical flutes known as recorders, was presented by the Trapp Family Choir at their first New York concert given yesterday afternoon at Town Hall.
^Trapp, Maria Augusta (1972). Maria: Maria von Trapp, My Own Story. Coverdale House. ISBN0-902088-43-2. Like many other parents who have been leaders for a very long time, I simply didn't know how to step down without bitterness and reproaches.
^Clifford, Stephanie (24 December 2008). "Von Trapps Reunited, Without the Singing". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 December 2008. Still, Johannes von Trapp, the 10th and youngest child, remembers growing up relatively anonymously in a quiet, strict home. ... By 1969, he had graduated from Dartmouth, completed a master's degree from the Yale School of Forestry and was planning on an academic career in natural resources. He returned to Stowe to put the inn's finances in order, and ended up running the place. He tried to leave, moving to a ranch in British Columbia in 1977 and staying a few years, then moving to a ranch in Montana. But the professional management in Stowe kept quitting. "Now I'm stuck here", he said.
^Anderson, William (1998). The World of the Trapp Family. Anderson Publications. ISBN1-890757-00-4.
