Rosemarie Erentrudis von Trapp

Rosmarie von Trapp was born as the legitimate daughter of former naval officer Georg Ritter von Trapp and his wife Maria Augusta, née Kutschera. She is their first child together and grows up with seven older half-siblings: Rupert, Agathe, Maria Franziska, Werner, Hedwig, Johanna, and Martina. In 1931, her sister Eleonore is born. 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, Rosemarie 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, 9-year-old Rosemarie 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 Rosemarie participating as a singer and recorder player. She also helped out at the family hotel.

In the United States, Rosemarie von Trapp witnessed the liberation of Austria and the reestablishment of the republic in April and May 1945, respectively. However, the family decided not to return to their homeland, though they supported relief efforts for Austria, which was in dire straits. In 1951, she became a U.S. citizen.

Later, she worked for five years as an amateur missionary and teacher in Papua New Guinea alongside her half-sister Maria Franziska. In Vermont, she was active in community singing, recorder playing, and handicrafts. She wrote a column in her local newspaper titled “Rosmarie’s Corner.”

Rosmarie died at the age of 93 at The Manor nursing home in Morrisville. She is buried in the family cemetery in Stowe.