Ted Enslin writes from the isolated area of Temple, Maine. He is a poet and hermit who has published a number of books of poems and whose work has appeared in literary magazines. Despite this, his lifestyle has allowed him to remain out of the spotlight. Merton published a poem of his in the third volume of «Monks Pond».
Fr. Ermin writes from Germany.
Merton writes to Fr. J. Whitney Evans in Duluth, Minnesota.
Br. George Every, a lay brother of the Society of the Sacred Mission, writes first while visiting Berkeley Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut, and later from the Anglican College at Kelham, England, where he taught. He covered monastic topics for Dorothy Emmet's journal «Theoria to Theory», to which Merton was a contributor.
Sr. Peter Eymard writes from St. John's Hospital in Fargo, North Dakota.
Charles P. Farnsley served as Louisville mayor from 1948-1953. Merton asks his help in obtaining books about American democracy in preparation to obtain U.S. citizenship.
Edward Farrell was coordinator of a workshop arranged by the San Francisco Planning and Urban Renewal Association (SPUR).
Richard Felciano was Ford Foundation composer-in-residence for the Detroit Public Schools at the time of correspondence. He wanted to use Merton's poem, "The Captives - A Psalm" for a setting for chorus and orchestra. He later became professor of music at the University of California at Berkeley.
Fr. Anastasius Fettig was Prior at Gethsemani at the time of this correspondence. He was reacting to the negative response among some about Merton's pamphlet he distributed before the 1968 abbatial election, "My Campaign Platform for Non-Abbot and Permanent Keeper of Present Doghouse".
George L. Fields was in medical school at the University of Kentucky in 1968 while writing to Merton.
James Fitzsimmons was editor of «The Lugano Review» and writes from Switzerland.
Archbishop George Bernard Flahiff, elevated to Cardinal in 1969, was bishop of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. At the Second Vatican Council, he was involved in what was known as Schema 13, which became «Gaudium et Spes», the Pontifical Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. Merton was particularly interested in the sections on peace, war, and how it would address nuclear weapons.
Charles Fogarty was a high school student considering a vocation to the priesthood or religious life and asks Merton whether the vocation of a Trappist fulfills "Our Lord's Commandment to go and preach the Gospel to every living creature."
Claude Forcellino writes from La Borie Noble, one of the Communautés de l'Arche of Joseph Jean Lanza del Vasto in France.
Jack Ford was a philosophy professor at Bellarmine College during his correspondence with Merton and who later taught at University of Louisville. He and Merton met around 1960 and later developed a friendship.
Dom James Fox came to Gethsemani in 1927. He was serving as guestmaster when Merton's younger brother, John Paul, visited the monastery, and Fox made arrangements for John Paul's baptism. In 1948, Fox was elected abbot after the death of Dom Frederic Dunne. Fox had a keen business sense, a graduate of Harvard Business School prior to entering Gethsemani, and helped Gethsemani support itself financially through mechanization of the farm and through establishment of a mail order cheese and bourbon fruit cake business. Merton was not a fan of this mechanization, the cheese business, and had other philosophical differences with Fox. Although much has been written about their rocky relationship at times, Fox went out of his way to ensure that Merton had greater solitude in his later years, a decision which likely kept Merton at Gethsemani. He had enough faith in Merton to appoint him as his novice master and as Fox's personal confessor. Fox would eventually step down as abbot in 1967 to pursue to live as a hermit as Merton had done. (Source: The Thomas Merton Encyclopedia, edited by William Shannon, Christine Bochen, and Patrick O'Connell, pp.160-161.)
Fr. Matthew Fox (Br. Matthew in his letter to Merton) was a Dominican priest who stirred up quite a following and much controversy over his ideas about creation spirituality, denial of original sin, interfaith unity and ecological Christianity. The Vatican had him silenced and he was dismissed from the Dominicans. In 1994, he was accepted by an Episcopal bishop in California. At the time of writing to Merton, he was still in his graduate studies with the Dominicans.
Archbishop Theodore Labrador Fraile was a Dominican later ordained archbishop in Foochow, China.
Merton writes to Mrs. John T. Francis of Louisville, Kentucky.
Fr. François de Ste. Marie was a Carmelite priest and editor of «La Vigne du Carmel: Collection de Spiritualité».
Anne Freedgood was editor in the Anchor Books division of Doubleday publishing in New York. She was also the wife of Merton's Columbia friend Seymour Freedgood.
Br. Roger Frety was from the Little Brothers of Jesus in Detroit, Michigan.
Jacqueline Frieder was Contributing Editor to «American Dialog», a literary magazine with a politically progressive bent and a strong group of contributors that was active from 1964-1972. Frieder writes from New York.
Erich Fromm was born in 1900 in Frankfurt, Germany. He left Nazi Germany in 1934 and came to New York. After teaching at a number of universities, he became professor of psychoanalysis at the National University of Mexico in 1951. Fromm was an author, psychoanalyst, philosopher, and anthropologist. Religiously, he had a Jewish upbringing and a background in the Talmud. In his adult life, he was atheist, but stressed a non-theistic spirituality that he found in the writings of Karl Marx, who was a profound influence on his view of human adjustment to society and which shaped his writings on psychoanalysis. (Source: «The Hidden Ground of Love», p. 308.)
Fr. Jerome Gassner was a Benedictine monk writing from Sant'Aselmo College in Rome.
Dom Roger Gazeau was a Benedictine monk of the Abbey of Saint-Martin de Ligugé in France.
Henry Geiger was Editor of «Manas» and writes from Los Angeles, California.
Fr. Afonso Gessinger was a Jesuit priest from Curitiba, Brazil.
Robert Ghelardi writes from South Bend, Indiana.
Robert Ginsberg is a Professor of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. He included Merton's essay "War and the Crisis of Language" in a book he edited, entitled «The Critique of War: Contemporary Philosophical Explorations».
Robert Giroux was one of Merton's friends from his Columbia University days. While Giroux was with Harcourt, Brace publishers, he reviewed and rejected some of Merton's early novels. After seeing «The Seven Storey Mountain», he decided to take a chance on this book which turned out to be a surprise best seller and launched Merton's career as a writer. In 1955, he joined Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, which became Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1964. He later took the role as a trustee for Merton's literary estate.
Alberto Girri was a poet, prose writer, and literary translator from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Like Jorge Luis Borges, he used metaphysics and mysticism in his writings, but uses these as a tool of contemporary criticism. He published many volumes of poetry and was a regular contributor to Victoria Ocampo's magazine, «Sur».
At the time of writing, Rochelle Girson was Book Review Editor for the «Saturday Review». She writes from New York.
Jean and Hildegard Goss-Mayr have long been advocates of non-violence and pillars of the peace movement. Hildegard was born in Vienna, and Jean was originally from France. They worked with Cardinal Ottaviani to craft documents of the Second Vatican Council in opposition to modern war. They shared with Merton an interest in Latin America and worked to bring non-violence change. In the 1980's, they promoted a peaceful end to the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines. Members of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Hildegard was named honorary president of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR). Jean and Hildegard visited Merton at Gethsemani in 1965. (Source: «The Hidden Ground of Love», pp. 324-325.)
Sr. Grace was with the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Motherhouse in Monroe, Michigan.
Sr. Grace was a Sister of St. Helena writing from a convent in Versailles, Kentucky.
Linda Gramatky was writing from New York on behalf of the publishers Doubleday and Company while Naomi Burton Stone was away from the office.
Bede Griffiths, born Alan Richard Griffiths, was born in England in 1906. He converted to Catholicism in the early 1930's and soon after joined a Benedictine monastery, Prinknash Abbey, and took the name Bede. Having later served as a Prior of Farnborough and then Pluscardin, during which time he gained an interest in Indian thought. He first asked to go to India to set up a monastic foundation, but was denied. Later, he was sent to India by the same abbot, but he was to be under the local bishop. From 1955-1958, he joined Fr. Francis Mahieu Acharya at Kurisumala Ashram (Mountain of the Cross), where they developed a Syriac rite monastic liturgy. Griffiths took the Sanskrit name Dhayananda, meaning "bliss of prayer". In 1963, he conducted a trip to the United States in which he engaged in an East-West dialog. (Source: Coff, Pascaline, O.S.B. "Man, Monk, Mystic." website of the Bede Griffiths Trust, accessed 2004/02/17. ‹http://www.bedegriffiths.com/bio.htm›)
Richard Grossinger was a poet and was editor and publisher of «Io» magazine. He and his wife, Lindy Hough, were contributors to «Monks Pond». He put Merton in contact with another «Monks Pond» contributor, Nelson Richardson or Providence, Rhode Island. Grossinger writes from Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Francesca Guli sends Merton the manuscript for a children's book of hers that was later published, «The Boy and the Stars: A Lyrical Tale of Dante Alighieri, the Boy».
Brijen K. Gupta was a visiting professor from India at the University of Cincinnati's NDEA World History Institute.
Fr. Columba Halsey was a Benedictine monk of St. Maur's Priory in South Union, Kentucky. The monastery was unique in the United States as having been established as a racially integrated community when it was founded in 1947 on the grounds of a Shaker village.
Victor Hammer was an artist and typographer originally from Vienna. He moved to the United States as Hitler rose to power and took a position at Wells College in New York. In 1948, he retired from Wells College and became artist-in-residence at Transylvania College in Lexington, Kentucky. He brought a hand press he had used in Italy to Lexington and printed under his Italian imprint of Stamperia del Santuccio. The letters do not tell when the two first met, but by the first letter from Hammer in 1955, he states that he had been to Gethsemani and exchanged ideas with Merton already and was friends with Br. Giles. Merton also received permission to visit Victor and Carolyn Hammer in Lexington. On one trip in 1959, Merton saw a triptych painted by Victor. Hammer had intended to paint a Madonna and child but it did not turn out right. In the center panel, a woman crowns a child. Merton declared her to be "Hagia Sophia", the Holy Wisdom of God, which prompted Merton to write his poem "Hagia Sophia". (Source: «Witness to Freedom», p. 3.)
Jim Hampton writes from the Bluegrass Bureau in Lexington, Kentucky, of the Louisville newspaper «The Courier-Journal».
Fr. Deryck Hanshell was a Jesuit priest and sub-editor of «The Month», a magazine published by the Society of Jesus (Jesuit Order) in London. The editor was Fr. Philip George Caraman, another correspondent of Merton's.
Born in London, John Harris was best known as an Francophile author and later for his broadcast about life in France for the BBC. He began his working life as schoolteacher in language, first in Devonshire and later in Cornwall. He spent much time in France and wrote about French culture. (Source: "John P. Harris." Times Online Obituary: The Times [of London]. 26 Nov. 2003. Accessed 5 Oct. 2010. Bellarmine University Library. ‹http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article1026218.ece›.))
John Heidbrink was a Presbyterian minister and activist for civil rights and peace. He writes to Merton after having been in touch with Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker. It was shortly after he came to Nyack, New York, in 1960 to work as Secretary for Church Relations for the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). He was a friend of Jim Forest and Daniel and Philip Berrigan, all of whom worked to found the Catholic Peace Fellowship (CPF). With Daniel Berrigan he discussed Protestant expectations for the Second Vatican Council and attended the International Peace Conference in Prague in 1964 and other Christian/Marxist seminars in Europe. Heidbrink arranged for the landmark meeting of Merton and Thich Nhât Hanh at Gethsemani in 1966. (Source: «The Hidden Ground of Love», p. 401.)
Sr. Helene was a Carmelite nun.
Mother Mary Henry was of the Monastery of the Infant Jesus, cloistered Dominican nuns from Lufkin, Texas.
Br. Alban Herberger was a monk of Gethsemani Abbey.
Professor Jean Hering was Merton's tutor in French and German during a 1930 holiday to Strasbourg. Tom Izod Bennett, Merton's guardian in England after the death of his father, arranged this for Merton. (Source: «The Road to Joy», pp. 60-61.)
Pfc. José Herrera was with the United States military and on assignment in Tehran, Iran. His postcard seems to indicate he was a former novice at Gethsemani.
Fr. Hilarion was a Trappist monk of Spencer Abbey in Massachusetts.
George Hitchcock was Editor of «Kayak», which Merton referred to as "one of the best poetry magazines in the country." Hitchcock contributed a few poems that were published in the third issue of «Monks Pond». He was referred to Merton by another correspondent of Merton's, Teo Savory. Hitchcock writes from San Francisco.
Sr. Gabriel Mary Hoare is a Sister of Loretto, artist, and was a professor in the Department of Fine Arts at Webster College in St. Louis, Missouri at the time of correspondence with Merton. She now is on faculty at Nerinx Hall High School in Webster Groves, Missouri. She arranged to bring an exhibit of Merton's drawings, "Forty-Three Signatures", to Webster College in April of 1965.
Fr. Marie-Joseph Hoat was a monk in Vietnam. His novices were reading «Seeds of Contemplation». He mentions the "dreadful war" in Vietnam.
Michael Hodder writes from Newark, New Jersey. He hitchhiked to Gethsemani to visit Merton, but had not cleared it before coming, so he was not allowed to visit him. Hodder was claiming conscientious objector (C.O.) status but was drafted for Vietnam. Merton wrote a letter on his behalf to his draft board. He seems to have been in contact with Tom Cornell from the Catholic Peace Fellowship. He was a member of Students for a Democratic Society (S.D.S.) in Newark.
Fr. William Hubbell writes from Lexington, Kentucky.
Cornelius Hubbuch made a substantial gift to Bellarmine College to pay for a library renovation necessary for the creation of the Merton Room. As a token of thanks, Merton sends Mr. and Mrs. Hubbuch one of his abstract drawings.
James Laughlin and Merton first came to known each other through Merton's former professor at Columbia University, poet Mark Van Doren. Van Doren recommended some of Merton's poems to Laughlin for his publishing house, New Directions. These poems became Merton's first published book, Thirty Poems. Laughlin, having been born into a wealthy steel-producing family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, decided he would rather enter the literary world. He attended Harvard and, during his years there, went to Europe and met Ezra Pound, who encouraged Laughlin to get into publishing. While still a student at Harvard, Laughlin began New Directions in Norfolk, Connecticut, publishing a young generation of modern poets. Through correspondence and visits to Gethsemani, Merton and Laughlin forged an intimate friendship, entrusting Laughlin with some of his most private confidences.
Merton employed Marie Charron for some of his typing after he had problems with his arm and back. He would mail her tapes or manuscripts to prepare for a standard fee.
Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Serge Bolshakoff received a doctorate in philosophy from Christ Church, Oxford. In his travels to churches and monasteries in promotion of Christian unity, he became acquainted with such notables as Pope John XXIII, Patriarch Athenagoras, Archbishop Temple of Canterbury, as well as the Abbot General of the Cistercians, Dom Gabriel Sortais (see "Sortais, Gabriel" and "Fox, James" files).
Patricia Burton has produced bibliographies of Thomas Merton and wrote The Book that Never Was: Thomas Merton’s Peace in the Post-Christian Era.
Thomasine ("Tommie") O'Callaghan was a close friend of Merton's through much of the 1960's. They met through a mutual friend and former professor, Daniel Walsh, whom Merton knew from a graduate course at Columbia University and O'Callaghan knew through the College of the Sacred Heart at Manhattanville, Purchase, New York. Merton became an adopted part of the O'Callaghan family in Louisville, getting to know Tommie's husband Frank and becoming "Uncle Louie" to the seven O'Callaghan children. Sometime Merton would visit the O'Callaghan's in conjunction with doctor's visits in Louisville. Tommie O'Callaghan also planned some picnics for Merton at Gethsemani. Merton chose her as a local member of the trustees of his literary estate in addition to the others from the publishing world in the northeast, Naomi Burton Stone and James Laughlin. (Source: The Thomas Merton Encyclopedia, pp. 340-341.)
Fr. Irenaeus Herscher was a Franciscan priest from St. Bonaventure College whom Merton knew from the library while teaching there. He is mentioned in The Seven Storey Mountain. Merton continued to request books from St. Bonaventure's library and to keep in contact with Herscher throughout his life at Gethsemani. (Source: «The Road to Joy», p. 295.)
The Very Rev. Eric Symes Abbott, 1906-1983, was an Anglican clergyman and Dean of Westminster.
Fr. M. Aelred was a Trappist Cistercian monk from Rawaseneng Monastery (also written Rawa Seneng) on the island of Java in Indonesia.
Alexandre Alexeieff writes from Paris, France regarding Boris Pasternak.
Fr. Amédée Hallier was a Trappist monk of the Abbay of Notre-Dame de Grâce in Bricquebec, Normany, France. He wrote «Un éducateur monastique», a book about St. Aelred of Rievaulx. Merton wrote an introduction which was published in the English language edition. The book was published in English as «The Monastic Tehology of Aelred of Rievaulx».
Reverend Mother Angela was abbess of the Trappist nuns at Mount St. Mary's Abbey in Wrentham, Massachusetts
At the time of writing, Bonnie Armstrong handled foreign rights for the publisher New Directions.
Johann Christoph Arnold (or John C. Arnold) is writing on behalf of the Plough Publishing House, affiliated with the Society of Brothers. The Society of Brothers is a group with Anabaptist roots and is often associated with the Hutterites and Bruderhof colonies.
Thérèse Arrés was from an area in the south of France and in the eastern Pyrenees, not far from Merton's birthplace of Prades.
Yanna Asch is writing on behalf of the School Department of the publisher Harcourt, Brace.
