Last surviving member of von Trapp family dies

Maria von Trapp of the Trapp Family Singers dead at 99

Maria Von Trapp from "The Sound of Music" dies.

Maria von Trapp, the last surviving member of the Austrian family whose escape from Nazi Germany and subsequent musical career inspired the famed musical "The Sound of Music," has died at the age of 99, according to multiple reports quoting her brother.

Von Trapp died Tuesday, but her half-brother Johannes von Trapp confirmed the news Saturday, according to the New York Daily News and the Associated Press. Von Trapp died of natural causes at her home in Vermont, the Daily News reported.

No one was available to comment at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vt., or at the original family home, Villa Trapp, in Austria.

Von Trapp was one of seven children of the Austrian Naval Captain Georg von Trapp and his wife Agathe Whitehead von Trapp. The father remarried after his wife died and had three more children with his second wife, Maria Augusta von Trapp, who taught the children music and wrote a book that became the inspiration for stage and film productions of that made the story a classic.

The von Trapp family left Austria in 1938 and performed musical numbers across Europe and the United States as the Trapp Family Singers before settling in Vermont, where they ran a resort.