In Memory of the real Maria von Trapp ('The Sound of Music'): 10 Years After Her Demise

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Actress Julie Andrews played her on screen in the 1965 classic movie musical, The Sound of the Music, but that multiple-Oscar-winning film would not have been made had for not the remarkable human being on whose life it was based. That would be Maria von Trapp, and this is her story.

A Closer Look

Maria von Trapp was born Maria Augusta Kutschera on a train to Vienna on January 26th, 1905. After her mother died when she was about 2, Maria was raised by an senior female cousin of her father in a small home outside of Vienna.

She received a strict, solitary education of five years in a grade school, three years in a high school, and four years in college.

At First Her Life Was Less Inspiring But Then...

Maria was raised a socialist and atheist, until she entered her college church for a Bach concert. Upon hearing a priest's sermon, Maria was inspired to later join the Nonnberg Abbey in Salzburg to become a nun.

At one point, Maria was teaching fifth graders at the convent when she was sent by the Mother Abbess as a governess to seven children of Baron Georg von Trapp.

The Baron was a much-decorated World War I submarine commander, had retired with his 7 children to a villa in Aigen, near Salzburg, after the demise of his wife.

One Thing Led To Another

Initially, Maria focused most of her attention on one of the Baron's daughters who was bedridden with rheumatic fever.

However, after her first year with the family, all of the captain's children asked their father to do something to ensure their governess stay with forever. They even suggested he should marry her. "I don't even know if she likes me!" was the captain's answer.

Subsquently, the children went to ask for themselves. Maria said yes, she and the captain married, and she never returned to the abbey.

The Family That Sings Together, Well...

After Maria married the Baron, the newly-expanded von Trapps often performed together, especially during their traditional observance of religious festivals. And the rest is history and became a hit movie.

All of that transpired because Maria wrote about her life, which she initially fictionalized in stage plays in 1959, which she then were adapted in The Sound of Music.

Off-screen, Maria spent the final days of her life as a resort owner with her children and grandchildren in Vermont.