The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria A Trapp

The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria A Trapp

With nearly 1,500 Broadway performances, six Tony Awards, more than three million albums sold, and five Academy Awards, The Sound of Music, based on the lives of Maria, the baron, and their singing children, is as familiar to most of us as our own family history. But much about the real-life woman and her family was left untold.

Here, Baroness Maria Augusta Trapp tells in her own beautiful, simple words the extraordinary story of her romance with the baron, their escape from Nazi-occupied Austria, and their life in America.

Now with photographs from the original edition.

On January 26, 1905, Maria Augusta Kutschera was born just before midnight on a train en way to Vienna. Her mother died when she was two years old, and her father decided to leave her with an elderly cousin so he could travel. Without any siblings or other children in the house, she had a lonely and rigorous upbringing. She was raised as a communist and atheist, with a critical attitude toward all religions. Her mind was altered when she heard the words of a well-known priest, Father Kronseder, during a visit to a church to hear a Bach concert.

After meeting him, she decided to become a nun and entered a monastery. She was taken away from the outdoor activities she used to like while devoted to the convent life. Maria's doctor, concerned about her worsening health, assisted the nuns in making the decision to send Maria to the home of retired navy captain Georg Von Trapp to be governess to his bedridden daughter. Maria and Georg married on November 26, 1927.

After that, the rest is history.