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Maria Kutschera von Trapp Maria Augusta Kutschera, Baroness von Trapp, is the matron of the Trapp Family Singers, whose autobiographical story of her family's inception and their escape from the Nazis during World War II was the inspiration for the musical The Sound of Music.
After school she went to a teachers' college, but then experienced a radical religious conversion. Maria, unlike her onscreen depiction as being deeply religious, was not so in real life, as she was raised to be an athiest and socialist and became actively cynical towards all religions.
Her indifference to religions, however, was dramatically altered one day, when she entered a busy church, believing that it was a Bach concert. Instead, the crowds had formed to listen to Father Kronseder, a visiting Jesuit priest, whose preaching and wise words captivated Maria. She began to believe in a religion she had once cynically disregarded. Maria said: "I had heard from my uncle that all of the Bible stories were inventions and old legends, and that there wasn't a word of truth in them. But the way this man talked just swept me off my feet. I was completely overwhelmed by it". When he finished his sermon and came down the pulpit stairs Maria grabbed his elbow and loudly asked, "Do you believe all this?" She met with the priest a few days later, deciding to tell him what was wrong with his beliefs, but his confidence in his beliefs greatly impressed her. Maria's own religious beliefs became stronger, and after she had graduated from college with a degree in education, she became a postulant in 1924 in Nonnberg Abbey, a Benedictine convent in Salzburg.
Despite the Mother Abbess promising Maria that she would return to the abbey after nine months in the job of governess, Maria never did return. Instead, she fell in love with Captain von Trapp, and they were married on November 26th, 1927 after she had relinquished her vows. Though Maria was intensely devoted to her convent, she was taken away from the outdoor activities she once thrived on. Her doctor was concerned her health was failing due to a lack of fresh air and exercise. This was when the decision was made to send Maria to the home of retired naval captain Georg von Trapp. Her position was not governess to all the children, as the movie portrayed, but specifically to the captain's daughter who was bedridden with rheumatic fever. The rest is truly history. Maria never returned to the convent and married the Captain on November 26, 1927. This is the story that has been fictionalized and immortalized by "The Sound of Music." 
She died on March 28, 1987 of heart failure in Morrisville, Vermont. Maria von Trapp, her husband, and Hedwig von Trapp (1917-1972), the fifth child of Georg and Agathe von Trapp, are interred in the family cemetery at the Lodge. Books by Maria Augusta Trapp:
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This page is compliments of Marisa Ciceran Created: Sunday, June 26,
2005; Last Updated:
Monday, June 25, 2007
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She was born just before midnight on January 26, 1905 aboard a train
travelling to Vienna, the daughter of Karl Kutschera and Augusta Rainer.
Her mother died of pneumonia when she was two and her father then left her
in the care of
her strict, elderly uncle and his family, so that he could travel across
Europe with his work as an engineer. Maria continued to visit her father
until he died when she was nine. Initially she was cared for by an elderly
cousin [or the uncle?] with grown-up children, then by
her (who is her?) son-in-law, who was a judge,
but mentally unstable and who abused her physically. There were no other
children living in the house, so her childhood was rather isolated. 
Maria's life of religion and seclusion was a far cry from her tomboy
days of climbing mountains and getting into all sorts of mischief. Maria
thrived on being outdoors and being active.Therefore, the effects of her
less active lifestyle at the abbey meant her health began to suffer: she
was beginning to have regular headaches, which the doctor diagnosed as
being due to a lack of fresh air and exercise. In 1926, while she was still a
postlant, the Mother Abbess decided to send Maria to the Trapp villa
in Aigen, Salzburg, to a position as governess to Maria, one of
the youngest daughter of Baron Georg
von Trapp, a wealthy retired naval captain who was widowed. The child was bedridden with rheumatic fever
{or scarlet fever?}. 
Maria never intended to write anything of her life, but a friend
persistently pleaded with her not to allow her story to be forgotten by
others. She denied she had any writing skill whatsoever, but her friend
was not to be put off and kept on asking her whenever they saw each other.
Finally, one day, in desperation, Maria excused herself and went to her
room for an hour to scribble a few pages about her life story, hoping to
prove once and for all she was no writer. However, this displayed such
natural writing talent that she was reluctantly forced to agree to finish
what she had started, and her jottings formed the basis of the first
chapter of her memoirs. Her book, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers
(1949), was a best-seller. It was made into two successful German films,