Agathe von Trapp

Agathe Johanna Erwina Gobertina von Trapp (12 March 1913 – 28 December 2010) was the eldest daughter of Georg von Trapp and his first wife, Agathe Whitehead von Trapp. She was also a member of the Trapp Family Singers, whose lives were the inspiration for the 1959 musical play and 1965 film The Sound of Music. She was portrayed as the character "Liesl". Childhood Agathe was born on 12 March 1913 in Pola, Istria, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (present-day Pula, Croatia). She was the eldest daughter and the second of ten children born to Georg von Trapp. The first seven of these were born to his first wife, Agathe Whitehead, while the youngest three: Rosmarie, Eleonore, and Johannes, half-siblings to the elder seven, were born to Georg's second wife, Maria Augusta Kutschera. Agathe von Trapp spent her early years, throughout World War I and after, near Zell am See, Austria. After the war, Agathe moved with her family to a house called "the Martinschlossl", in Klosterneuburg, a half hour train ride from Vienna, near the Danube. She and her family finally settled near Salzburg, in the town of Aigen in 1925. Agathe was tutored by a governess at home until age 11, when she started attending a local school. Agathe was surrounded by music at an early age, and her father began teaching her guitar when she was in her early teens. Agathe's mother, Agathe Whitehead von Trapp, died of scarlet fever in 1922, when Agathe was almost 10 years old. Her father remarried six years later, to Maria Augusta Kutschera, in November 1927. Middle history and singing career After graduating from High School, Agathe tutored briefly, and then pursued her loves of painting, languages, and sewing. In the evenings, Agathe sang with her family. Agathe sang first soprano with her sister Johanna. While they did this just for enjoyment at first, their hobby turned into a career for the von Trapps after much of their money was lost in the global depression that followed the 1929 Wall Street Crash. Those who had heard them sing encouraged them to do more concerts. After winning a competition for folksingers at the 1936 Salzburg Festival, the von Trapps were asked to sing a half hour radio program, which resulted in singing before Austria's chancellor, Kurt von Schuschnigg.