Eleonore Elisabeth Campbell (geb. von Trapp)

Eleonore Elisabeth von Trapp, known as “Lorli,” was born as the legitimate daughter of former naval officer Georg Ritter von Trapp and his wife Maria Augusta, née Kutschera. She is their second child together and grows up with seven older half-siblings—Rupert, Agathe, Maria Franziska, Werner, Hedwig, Johanna, and Martina—and her sister Rosemarie. The family home was in Salzburg-Aigen. Together with the priest Franz Wasner, her stepmother helped shape the family choir.

After suffering significant financial losses following the bankruptcy of the Lammer banking house in 1934–35, renting out living quarters and income from the family choir—founded in 1936—became important sources of revenue. After the von Trapp family won a folk singing competition at the 1936 Salzburg Festival, they were asked to perform on a half-hour radio program, which led to them performing before Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg.

After performing twice in Vienna and at the 1937 Salzburg Festival, Eleonore von Trapp accompanied her family—who called themselves the Salzburg Trapp Chamber Choir or Trapp Chamber Choir—on a European tour to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, England, and Norway. At the beginning of 1938, the family traveled through Italy. The strictly Catholic and legitimist family was vehemently opposed to National Socialism.

On March 12, 1938, 6-year-old Eleonore von Trapp witnessed the downfall of a free and independent Austria with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. Since the family did not want to live under Nazi occupation, they decided to emigrate. In mid-August, they traveled by train from Salzburg to St. Georgen in Brunek, South Tyrol. From there, they traveled via France and England on October 7, 1938, aboard the SS American Farmer to the United States, where they arrived in New York on October 17, 1938. She was sent to a boarding school in the Bronx, New York.

The family choir, known as “The Trapp Family,” made its first appearance in the United States on October 21, 1938, at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. Rosemarie and Eleonore were still too young at that time and did not participate. Between March 1939 and the summer of 1939, the family toured Europe once more, finally traveling on the S.S. Bergensfjord from Oslo to New York, where they arrived on October 7, 1939. In 1942, the family purchased a farm in Stowe, Vermont. Starting in 1943, Rosemarie and Eleonore also sang in the family choir, with Eleonore performing as a soprano and recorder player.

In the United States, Eleonore von Trapp witnessed the liberation of Austria and the restoration of the republic in April and May 1945, respectively. The family decided not to return to their homeland, however, but supported relief efforts for Austria in need.

In 1954, she married Hugh David Campbell and ended her regular concert career. The couple had seven daughters. Hugh worked as a French teacher, coach, and later as a school principal; the family lived in several New England states. In 1975, they moved permanently to Waitsfield, Vermont.

Eleonore Campbell died on October 17, 2021, in Northfield at the age of 90. She was laid to rest at the Common Cemetery in Waitsfield.