Maria von Trapp

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. Her mother, Augusta (nee Rainer), died shortly after Maria was born, and her father, Karl Kutschera, died when she was 6 years old. As a guardian to Maria, the court appointed a man whom she has described as a passionate socialist and a violent anti-Catholic. Although she had been baptized, she grew up outside the Church until she was 18. She was, at that time, in her final year at the State Teachers College for Progressive Education in Vienna. To atone for her earlier life, Maria Kutschera decided to enter a convent. She was accepted as a candidate for the novitiate at the Nonnberg Benedictine Convent at Salzburg, where she considered herself a black sheep because of her tomboyish ways, her willful and independent nature, and her lack of religious training. She was teaching fifth graders at the convent when she was sent by the Mothe