• Maria Augusta von Trapp DHS (née Kutschera; 26 January 1905 – 28 March 1987), often styled as “Baroness”, was the stepmother and matriarch of the Trapp Family Singers.
  • Maria von Trapp, the last surviving member of the singing family whose story was told in The Sound of Music, has died at 99.
  • Singer Maria Trapp was born on January 26, 1905, aboard a train, as her mother hurried from their village in the Tyrol to the hospital in Vienna, Austria.
  • Born Maria Augusta Kutschera on January 26, 1905 in Vienna, Maria von Trapp wrote the 1949 book The Story of the Trapp Family Singers.
  • While The Sound of Music was generally based on the first section of Maria's book The Story of the Trapp Family Singers (published in 1949)...
  • Maria von Trapp signed away the rights to her story when the German film adaptations of her autobiography were being made.
  • In 1926, while still a schoolteacher at the abbey, Maria was asked to teach one of the seven children of widowed naval commander Georg von Trapp.
  • (tr) Maria Augusta von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers , Lippincott, 1949.
  • Mary Martin as Maria von Trapp in a publicity photo for The Sound of Music, the musical that debuted on Broadway on this day in 1959.