Sunday 23 February 2014

Maria von Trapp, last of original of famed ‘Sound of Music’ family, dead at 99


 Maria von Trapp, of the originial von Trapp singers, plays the accordion in her home.

EVY MAGES/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Maria von Trapp, of the Trapp Family Singers, plays the accordion in her home.

The last member of the famed von Trapp family, whose story was immortalized in the "Sound of Music," has died.
Maria von Trapp died Tuesday in Stowe, Vt, of natural causes, Rebecca Cassel, executive assistant with the Trapp Family Lodge, told the Daily News. She was 99 years old, Cassel said.
"Thank you for your thoughts. Maria had a wonderful life and while we will miss her the memories of her will live on," Johannes von Trapp, the youngest son of Capt. Georg von Trapp and Maria Kutschera von Trapp, told The News in a statement through the hotel, which the family built in 1950.
Maria von Trapp sings with traditionally dressed children in front of her former home, Villa Trapp, in Salzburg, Austria, on July 24, 2008. Her family fled the Nazi regime to the United States in late 1938.

LEONHARD FOEGER/REUTERS

Maria von Trapp sings with traditionally dressed children in front of her former home, Villa Trapp, in Salzburg, Austria, on July 24, 2008. Her family fled the Nazi regime to the United States in late 1938.

Johannes von Trapp is the president of Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, where the family settled in 1942.
Maria was the last surviving member of the original seven children born to Georg von Trapp and his first wife, Agathe Whitehead. The family was immortalized in the musical and film "The Sound of Music," in which the singing family from Austria fled the Nazis in 1938 on a singing tour in the United States.
A picture of the famous singing family from the early 1940s.

COURTESY VON TRAPP FAMILY

A picture of the famous singing family from the early 1940s.

After Agathe Whitehead died from scarlet fever in 1922, George von Trapp was left to care for their seven children.
Maria Kutschera, who was portrayed by Julie Andrews in the 1965 film, was brought in to care for the children and she later married the captain. The couple then had three children.
The family, portrayed here in the film 'The Sound of Music,' included seven children.

The family, portrayed here in the film 'The Sound of Music,' included seven children.

Maria von Trapp was the third oldest of the original seven children. She played accordion and taught Austrian dance with sister Rosmarie at the lodge. Maria died near the family hotel, Cassel said.
Like her mother, she also contracted scarlet fever, but she survived the illness. Her future stepmother, Maria Kutschera, helped tutor her as a child while she was ill, Cassel said.
The oldest von Trapp sister Agathe (right) arrives at the opening night of the revival of 'The Sound of Music' with her sister Maria von Trapp at the Martin Beck Theatre on March 12, 1988, in New York City.

REUTERS

The oldest von Trapp sister Agathe (right) arrives at the opening night of the revival of 'The Sound of Music' with her sister Maria von Trapp at the Martin Beck Theatre on March 12, 1988, in New York City.

“As a result of scarlet fever, I was too sickly to walk the three miles to school every day, and the doctor advised that I stay home. This condition brought Maria Augusta Kutschera to teach me first grade gymnasium, the equivalent of middle school,” Maria von Trapp wrote on the lodge’s website. “She came to us as my teacher and after three years became our second mother. On November 26, 1927 they were married and would have three children, Rosmarie, Eleonore and Johannes.”
Maria von Trapp said their stepmother taught them classical music and “we also discovered we had all the voices necessary for four-part music.” They famously performed, and the Trapp Family Singers final U.S. performance was in 1956.
Maria later served as a missionary in Papua, New Guinea.
“An irony to the story is that Maria, the sickly child, outlived all her six siblings,” Cassel said. “She was a wonderful person with a very kind heart. We all loved her.

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