Robert Menchin was working on a project involving career change and asks Merton's input on the subject. While the decision to go to a monastery is somewhat different, Merton describes his vocation to the monastic life and the thoughts he went through as an aspiring writer who may have had to give up that life.
Agnes Gertrude Stonehewer Merton, Thomas Merton's Aunt "Kit", was Owen Merton's sister, and she lived in New Zealand. Thomas Merton met her twice: once coming with her mother Gertrude Hannah Merton to Flushing, New York, in 1919; and once visiting him at Gethsemani in 1961. She suffered a tragic death aboard the ferry «Wahine», which sank between New Zealand's largest islands. (Source: The Thomas Merton Encyclopedia, p. 293).
Percyval Tudor-Hart was the art teacher and mentor of Thomas Merton's father, the painter Owen Merton.
See also, Merton's manuscript essay "Two Comments: 'SENSITIVITY TRAINING' [BY CHARLOTTE BUHLER] AND 'THE AVANT GARDE IN THE ARTS' [BY HENRY WINTHROP AND GERALD SYKES]."
Rhoda Rissin was Assistant to James Laughlin, head of New Directions publishers from Norfolk, Connecticut.
Mery-Lú Sananes was a student in the Facultad de Humanidades y Educación at the Universidad Central in Caracas, Venezuela, as were the others that signed his initial letter to Merton: Jaime López-Sanz, Irene Flores, and Ramón Montiel. They write to inform Merton that LAM, a student literary group, translated his poem "Original Child Bomb" into Spanish (as "Niña Bomba Original"). Sananes and López-Sanz did the translation.
Philip Griggs writes to Merton from Carmichael, California. He later joined the Ramakrishna Vedanta Center in London, England. Between his correspondence in 1965 and 1971, he had taken the name Swami Yogeshananda. He was in his later years the director of the Vedanta Center of Atlanta.
A. Philip Randolph was in the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement for African Americans, a socialist and union leader fighting for workers writes and equality. Born in Florida, he moved to Harlem in 1911 to get into theater. Enrolling at the City College of New York, he changed life plans and majored in politics and economics. Together with Columbia University student Chandler Owen, he founded the radical magazine, The Messenger, in 1917. He organized a union called the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925, the Pullman Company being a major employer of African Americans. He was a supporter of non-violent means of protest and generally anti-war, fighting discrimination in the armed forces during the 1940's. During the 1950's and 1960's, he served as vice president of the AFL-CIO unions. Along with Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King, Jr., he helped organize the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. The following year, he was given a Presidential Medal of Freedom. (Source: "A. Philip Randolph." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 9 Feb 2006, 04:34 UTC. 15 Feb 2006, ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=A._Philip_Randolph&oldid=38873488›.)
Vera Zorina (born Eva Brigitta Hartwig) was a dancer and actress born in Berlin in 1917. In 1933, she was discovered in London by representatives of the Ballet Russe, Leonide Massine and Colonel de Basil, who gave her stage name. The Goldwyn Follies in 1938 launched her movie career. She was at one time married to famous ballet choreographer George Balanchine. She writes to Merton under Brigitta Lieberson (the last name was of her second husband, Goddard Lieberson). She sends Merton a recording she did of Hérodiade, but is concerned that it is not appropriate for a monastic audience. Merton expresses his enjoyment in the recording and continues to correspond with Zorina.
Richard Meyers would later become a significant figure in punk rock under the name Richard Hell.
All files under “Beecher, John”.
Fr. Terence Connolly was Director of Libraries for Boston College from 1944 until 1959, succeeded by Brendan Connolly. He obtained a copy of a manuscript for «The Seven Storey Mountain» in the late 1940's.
Raymond A. DeSutter, II was a novice at Gethsemani under Merton. His name in religion was Fr. Robert and was at Gethsemani Abbey from 1957-1963.
Merton wrote the foreword to Sally Donnelly's master's thesis at Smith College entitled "Marcel and Buddha : a metaphysics of enlightenment." This later became Merton's essay entitled "Nirvana," which was included in his book «Zen and the Birds of Appetite». Merton's friend and Smith professor Amiya Chakravarty sent it to Merton.
Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist and brother of composer George Gershwin.
Herman Hanekamp was born in Oldenburg, Germany in 1884. After immigration to the United States in 1904, not much is known other than a couple of years he spent as a cowboy in Texas before riding a horse to Gethsemani when he entered in 1912 (account by Raymond DeSutter [formerly Fr. M. Robert in religious life during his time at Gethsemani]. Hanekamp had taken simple vows but was dismissed in 1917. After leaving vowed religious life, he contnued to live near the monastery. Whether Hanekamp was officially given land that was later reaquired by the abbey is uncertain. He had a small dwelling and raised crops, goats, and pigs. He died in 1958.
Thomas Thompson writes from Dußlingen (Dusslingen), West Germany. He spent half a year at Gethsemani Abbey while Merton was Novice Master, under the name Frater William. He re-entered lay life to study and teach theology and was getting a doctorate in Germany at the time of writing.
David Tillson writes from Brockport, New York.
Amedeo Tintori writes from Livorno, Italy, concerning Merton's article "Monastic Peace".
Paolo Toufenti writes from Rome, Italy.
Vincent Tovell writes on behalf of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Ricardo Trigueros de León was Director General of Publications for the Ministry of Education in San Salvador, El Salvador.
Laurens van der Post was a writer born in South Africa. He writes about the conflicts of having been born into a Boer family, educated by the British who had recently defeated them, and hating the system of apartheid. His attacks on South African apartheid in a magazine he co-founded in his youth, «Voorslag», led to his exile. He spent some time in Japan and later joined the British army in 1939. He served in the Second World War. After the war, he was send on a mission by the British government's Colonial Development Corporation, which took him into the African interior. He began to write some travelogues and novels with influences of Jungian psychology. He saw racial tensions in light of the conflict between our interior battles between our primitive and civilized self, and racism as exteriorizing our interior hatred of the primitive self to what we perceive as primitive in other groups. Other themes of mysticism and interiority occur in his novels, prompting Merton's interest in them. (Source: "Van der Post, Laurens". World Authors 1950-1970. 1975. Wilson Biographies Plus. Online. H.W. Wilson. Bellarmine University Library, Louisville, KY. 18 July 2006. ‹http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com›.)
Charles Lincoln Van Doren was the son of famed poet Mark Van Doren, Mark having been one of Merton's professors at Columbia University. Charles became an scholar and professor at Columbia University, as well, but his legacy was later overshadowed by scandal. He was a long-term contestant on the game show Twenty-One. His winning streak was later revealed as a fraud.
Mark Van Doren won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1940 for his 1939 volume of collected poems and was a literary critic and professor. He had a profound effect on Merton as a professor of English at Columbia University in New York. Van Doren was at Columbia from 1920 to 1959. Merton stayed in contact with Van Doren after leaving Columbia and after entering the monastery. Van Doren selected the pieces for Merton's «Thirty Poems» and helped get them published. Merton also knew Van Doren's wife, Dorothy, and sons Charles and John. Mark Van Doren visited Merton at Gethsemani a few times and met once with him in Louisville. (Source: «The Road to Joy», p. 3.)
The Rev. Dale L. Van Meter writes from Medfield, Massachusetts. He was working on a Masters degree in Social Work from Boston College at the time of writing to Merton.
Dom Hubert Van Zeller was a Benedictine monk of Downside Abbey in England and scholar on the monastic life. He authored a number of books and articles on the contemplative life, the scriptures and monasticism.
Fr. Lambert Vandermeulen was a monk of St. Benedictus-Abdij, a Cistercian monastery in Achel, Belgium.
Fr. Joseph Vann was a Franciscan friar and one of the founding fathers of St. Bernardine of Siena College in Loudonville, New York, an extension of St. Bonaventure College.
Maria de Varela was a professor at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Argentina.
James G. Vargiu writes while on vacation in Italy, but permanently resided in Palo Alto, California.
Fr. Roman J. Verostko was Staff Editor for Art for «The New Catholic Encyclopedia» and writes from Washington, D.C.
Germaine Vignolle writes from Marseille, France.
Fr. Vincent Mary was a Passionist priest. He writes from St. Bernard's Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, where he was going to conduct a retreat for the nuns.
Fr. Urban Voll was a Dominican priest and an editor for the «Catholic Theological Encyclopedia». He writes from Washington, D.C.
Dom Aelred Wall was the founder of Christ in the Desert Monastery in Abiquiu, New Mexico, and was its first superior.
Sr. Anita (Ann) Wasserman was a nun from the Carmelite Convent of Cleveland, Ohio. She had written to Merton before entering the Carmelites in 1952. She died in April of 2015 at 82. Her brother, Edmund, had entered Gethsemani Abbey and was a good friend of Merton's. His name in religion was Fr. John of the Cross, whom Merton referred to by the nicknames "Cap" or "Cappy". The Wasserman family met with Merton when coming to Gethsemani, "adopting" him into the family. (Source: «Witness to Freedom», p. 177.)
Peter Watts was a British sculptor from Bath, England, who sculpted many of the statues at Gethsemani Abbey.
Born in Austria in the end of the 19th Century, Vally Weigl was a composer, music therapist and music instructor. She and her husband, the composer Karl Weigl, moved to New York in 1938 because of the Nazi rise to power and their Jewish ancestry. She taught at the Institute for Avocational Music and the American Theater Wing and continued composing. She received a Master's degree in 1955 from Columbia University and pursued her interests in music therapy, writing and lecturing on the subject and teaching at New York Medical College and the New School. She writes to Merton in 1964 in her new role as chairperson of the Arts for World Unity Committee of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Their theme was World Unity through the Arts. (Source: "Weigl, Vally." Biography from the New Grove Dictionary of Women Composers. 1995. Wilson Biographies Plus. Online. H.W. Wilson. Bellarmine University W.L. Lyons Brown Library, Louisville, KY. 5 Sep. 2006. ‹http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com›.)
Gertrude S. Weiner writes from the Foreign Rights Department of Curtis Brown in New York.
Joel Weishaus is a poet and sculptor, who is currently resident writer at the Museu do Essencial e do Além Disso, Bibliothecadas das Marauilhas in Rio de Janerio, Brazil. He has published some of his poetry and haikus, and he wrote the introduction to «Woods, Shore Desert», Merton's journal of his trip to New Mexico, California and Alaska.
Walter A. Weisskopf was Professor Emeritus of Economics at Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois. He was the author of «The Psychology of Economics» (1955) and «Alienation and Economics» (1971).
Ulfert Wilke was a painter and calligrapher who was born in Germany and came to the United States in 1938. From 1948 to 1964, he was at the Allen R. Hite Institute at the University of Louisville.
R. Geoffrey Wilkes was a Catholic from Bilston, Staffordshire, England, who had war-time experience in the Air Force.
Sr. Gertrude Wilkinson was Redemptorist superior and editor of the «New Contemplative Review», to which Merton submitted an article.
Galen Williams was executive secretary of The Poetry Center in New York.
Jonathan Williams is a poet, publisher, designer, photographer and essayist, born in Asheville, North Carolina. After studies at Princeton and painting at the Phillips Memorial Gallery, he returned to Asheville to study photography at Black Mountain College. After his return to North Carolina, he became associated with the Black Mountain group of poets and began a publishing venture, the Jargon Society Books. Williams visited Gethsemani Abbey in January of 1967 with Guy Davenport and Ralph Eugene Meatyard. (Source: «The Courage for Truth», p. 284.)
Henry F. Wilson was an aspiring writer from Great Falls, Montana.
Robert Alfred Jump Wilson was owner of the Phoenix Book Shop in New York from 1962 through the late 1980's, where he was an antiquarian bookseller and an author. He currently resides in St. Michaels, Maryland.
Dom Jacques Winandy was born in Liege, Belgium, in the early 20th century and became a Benedictine monk Clervaux Abbey in Luxemburg. This was a compromise for him. His father wanted him to enter a Benedictine abbey closer to home rather than follow his dreams of becoming a Carthusian. Carthusians are a monastic order living in community but spending most of the day, besides Mass and two of offices of prayer, in solitude in one's cell. During World War II, the monks of Clervaux lived in exile in religious houses in Belgium. Winandy was excepted as a Carthusian during this time; however, he was elected as abbot of Clervaux immediately after the war, a role he reluctantly accepted. He served as abbot until 1957. He spent time as a hermit before, after a year in Rome, being sent to the Benedictine abbey in Martinique. There he met Br. (now Fr.) Lionel Pare. Pare shared Winandy's interest in the eremitical life. They obtained permission to start of group of hermits, living individually but under the direction of an elder in 1964. They found an amenable bishop, Bishop Remi De Roo and the space for solitude on the Tsolum River in British Columbia, Canada, near Merville. Winandy remained in a hermitage in British Columbia until 1972, when he returned to a hermitage in Belgium, not far from Clervaux Abbey. He spent the next twenty-five years of his life there before his last six months at Clervaux while infirm. Winandy's eremitical life had a profound impact on a revival of the vocation of the hermit in the Catholic Church. (Source: Brandt, M. Charles. "A monk of the Diaspora." The New Catholic Times: 5 Jan 2003.)
William Witherup is a poet, playwright and performance artist. He was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and grew up in Richland, Washington. He writes to Merton from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and living in a cabin in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. He has published a number of volumes of poetry. His poetry has focused on labor, environmentalism, and his father's working-class life in the nuclear industry. (Source: "William Witherup." Contemporary Authors Online. 2002. Literature Resource Center. Thomson Gale. Bellarmine University Lib., Louisville, Kentucky. 15 Sep. 2006 ‹http://galenet.galegroup.com›.)
Frances Witlin writes on behalf of the Good-Will Ambassadors for the Hiroshima-Nagasaki World Peace Study Mission.
Princess Monica Wittgenstein writes from Cologne, Germany.
Fr. Augustine Wulff was a Trappist monk of Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky.
Nobuzō Yamada writes from Hiroshima, Japan. He mentions visiting Merton at Gethsemani Abbey in 1964. He was likely among the delegation for the World Peace Mission Pilgrimage of Hibakusha, the survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Fr. Joseph Minoru Yamaguchi was a Marianist priest writing from Tokyo, Japan.
Bonnie Young was Assistant Curator of the Cloisters of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
John Yungblut is a Quaker scholar and scholar of Jungian psychology. One of his academic aims is arguing for the place of Christian mysticism. He was married to June Yungblut. He writes from the Quaker House (Society of Friends) in Atlanta, Georgia, which he co-directed with his wife, June.
Msgr. Vincent Arthur Yzermans took over as editor of «Our Sunday Visitor» and its affiliate magazine, «The Priest», in the fall of 1967. He was a priest from Minnesota.
Sr. Jean Zmolek was a School Sister of Notre Dame from Notre Dame Academy in Omaha, Nebraska, at the time of writing to Merton.
Ambassador Soedjatmoko writes from the Embassy of Indonesia in Washington, D.C. Raden Soedjatmoko Saleh Mangoediningrat went also by the nickname "Mas Koko" or simply "Koko". By the end of their five hour meeting in Washington, D.C., the two men referred to each other as Tom and Koko.
Sibylle Akers was born in Dresden, Germany. She left Germany after the Second World War and moved to Texas. She was a well-known photographer. In September of 1959, she visited Gethsemani and took 26 photographs of Merton that are now part of the Merton Center collection. Akers sends letters and postcards from a visit to Europe in the mid-sixties. In 1965, she moved to Washington, D.C., because her husband was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson as Director of the U.S. Information Agency.
