Maria Agusta Kutschera, Maria, Rupert, Agathe, Werner, Hedwig, Johanna, Martina, Rosmarie, Eleonore, Johannes) The von Trapp Family (Georg Biography

Singers, entertainers. Though they inspired The Sound of Music, one of the most popular musical films ever made, the story of the real von Trapp family is quite different from the silver screen version. Georg von Trapp became a widow after his wife, Agathe Whitehead, died, leaving him seven young children. The wealthy Austrian aristocrat and retired sea captain later married the family's governess, Maria Agusta Kutschera, who fiercely and single-handedly launched the family into a career in entertainment.

Kutschera was born in 1905, and her mother died just two years later. She experienced a lonely and very strict upbringing, in which she was raised as a socialist and atheist. It wasn't until college, where she had a chance meeting with a visiting Jesuit priest, that Kutschera made the decision to devote herself to the convent.

Maria's doctor was concerned that her health was failing due to a lack of fresh air and exercise, and the decision was made to send Maria to the von Trapp home to serve as a governess to the captain's ill daughter. Maria never returned to the convent, and married the Captain on November 26, 1927.

When the von Trapps lost their considerable fortune in a bank crash, Maria took the family hobby, singing, and turned it into the family profession. Before long, the von Trapps were performing all over Europe. In March of 1938, the Nazis marched into Salzburg, and the von Trapps decided it was time to leave Austria. Maria arranged an American concert tour, and the family was able to escape Hitler. They left behind their home and all that remained of their wealth, and would never return. Unlike the musical, the family did not have to climb mountains to make their escape. They left by train to Italy and then on to America without incident.

Once in the United States, the von Trapps struggled to establish themselves as a choral singing group. They sang mostly in German, had a repertoire of difficult classical music, and dressed like refugees. But Maria would not let them fail. She hired a top manager and a publicist, and before long the family singing group became quite a phenomenon. But even at the height of their popularity, Maria would not let them rest. The ten children toured up to eight months a year. During the summer, they worked their Vermont farm and ran a music camp. Maria demanded total loyalty of the children, and after their father died in 1947, they began to rebel at her unwillingness to let them live their own lives.

The isolation of a life on the road or on the farm, combined with constant work and Maria's volatile temper, took its toll. Rosmarie, the eldest child, suffered a nervous breakdown, and her mother sent her for electro-shock therapy. Another daughter ran away to elope. And before long, Maria was forced to hire non-family members for the family singing group. In 1965, The Sound of Music, based on Maria's book The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, made its Hollywood debut starring Julie Andrews.

Maria died in 1987 and today, most of the surviving von Trapps live down-to-earth lives in rural Vermont. Johannes, the youngest of the Trapp children, is the current president of The Trapp Family Lodge.

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