Pat Hickman was Merton's girlfriend for a few months while he was a student at Columbia University in 1938. These letters were written during a week spend with Robert Lax in Olean, New York.
Harry Hill, Jr. was a bookseller from Los Angeles, California.
James Hinchey was a novice at Gethsemani from February of 1958 to March of 1959. It seems he had started at St. Benedict's College in Atchison, Kansas, before entry at Gethsemani and returned there to complete his degree. He went on to study at Duquesne University and University of Wisconsin for graduate studies. He joined the Oratorians and was ordained a priest in 1976.
Fr. Denis Hines, a Trappist priest, writes first from a hermitage in Sedona, Arizona. He mentions previously being at St. Benedicts Abbey in Snowmass, Colorado. Later, his card to Merton is addressed from Christ in the Desert Monastery in New Mexico. His hermitage at Sedona was getting shut down and he was looking for a new site. Merton informs him that he will not be allowed to establish a hermitage at Gethsemani at that time.
Thelma Hinshaw writes to thank Merton for sending a signed copy of «New Seeds of Contemplation». She asks Merton to explain the use of the term "holy recollection", and Merton sends her his take on recollection. Hinshaw writes from Florence, Arizona.
Anselm Hollo was a professor in the Department of English at University of Iowa in Iowa City at the time of correspondence with Merton. He was a Finnish poet who lived for a time on the Isle of Wight, and, since 1968, has taught at a number of universities in the United States. His translations of poems and his own poems are found throughout Merton's little literary magazine «Monks Pond». He has published a number of books of his poetry and of poetry in translation.
Merton writes to Vintila Horia in Madrid, Spain. Horia was a Romanian novelist, poet and essayist writing in French. His best known novel was «Dieu est né en exil» (God was born in exile).
Fr. Robert Hovda writes from the St. Paul's Student Center at North Dakota State University in Fargo. He asks Merton's help in putting together contemporary Prayers of the Faithful for the Liturgical Conference in Washington, D.C. He was best known for his work in liturgical renewal but was also deeply involved in peace, civil rights, and social justice concerns. He has published a number of books on liturgy.
At the time of writing, John Hunt was Senior Editor of «The Saturday Evening Post».
Luis M. Iglesias Ortega was a Dominican priest and author writing from Villava in the north of Spain.
Born William Archibald McGirt, Jr., Will Inman wrote under his mothers maiden name and the name it was legally changed to in 1973, Inman. Inman was a poet, essayist and activist for causes such as civil rights, gay rights, and opposition to the Vietnam War.
Dom Clemente José Carlos Isnard was a Benedictine monk who became Bishop of the Diocese of Nova Friburgo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Sadhu Ittyavirah was a Catholic author from India who sent Merton some of his books, including «The Witness», «1+1=1» and «We Are One».
Dr. Lalla Iverson was Director of the Association for Rural Aid in Medicine (ARAM). She writes from Rockville, Maryland.
Fr. Thomas W. Jackson was Catholic Chaplain for the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution at Pittsburgh.
H. L. Jacobson was Director of the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) International Trade Centre, publishers of «International Trade FORUM». He writes from Geneva, Switzerland.
Stephen James was founder and President of the Peace Hostage Exchange Foundation, headquartered in New York. The idea was to send delegations from the United States to strategic targets in the Soviet Union and vice versa. The hope was to get some prominent individuals, like Merton or Robert Kennedy, to go over and to get Premier Krushchev's family and others to come here in exchange.
Harold Brewster Jenkins was Merton's uncle on his mother's side. He married Elsie Hauck Holahan in 1938. (See "Jenkins, Elsie" for a more complete description).
George Johnson was on the Catholic Worker staff. He visited Gethsemani in late February 1962 with Jim Forest and others. Merton mentions this meeting in his journal entry of March 2, 1962.
Poet Halvard Johnson was born in Newburgh, New York, and spent his boyhood in both in small Hudson Valley towns and New York. He spent his years after college in Ohio hitchhiking around the United States in the late 1950's. After graduate study in English at University of Chicago, he began teaching at the University of Texas, El Paso for four years. Near the end of his time in Texas, he sent Merton some poems for «Monks Pond». After this, he taught in Puerto Rico, traveled Europe, and now has returned to his native New York where he writes and teaches at the New School. A number of his books of poetry have been published. (Source: Monks Pond, pp. 109 and 207.)
At the time of this correspondence, William Jovanovich was writing from New York as President of Harcourt, Brace and World.
L. Lauffmann writes from Bruay en Artois, France.
Fr. Thomas Keller was a Benedictine monk writing from Hauterive Abbey, Switzerland.
William Melvin Kelley was born and raised in New York. He went to Harvard with the intention of becoming a lawyer, but experienced a life-changing desire to become a writer after attending a prose fiction class of John Hawkes. He began writing an did not finish at Harvard. His novels and short stories reflect mythic takes on the frustration of the African American experience of racism in the United States. He first writes to Merton in response to a review Merton wrote for Kelley's first novel, «A Different Drummer», thanking him more that he "got it" than for liking it. The following year, he writes Merton after having read some of his writings. He expresses that he is not a Christian and harbors both happy and bitter memories of his mother's Catholicism. He expresses feeling more affirmed in Catholic Italy, though, than Protestant America. He would later move to Paris, a move to further distance himself from United States culture. He would later seek to rediscover some of the oral history tradition of Africa. Some of his other books include «A Drop of Patience» and «Dəm». (Source: "Kelley, William Melvin". World Authors. 1970. Online. H.W. Wilson. Bellarmine University Library, Louisville, KY. 2005/05/12. ‹http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com›.)
Mona Kelly writes from Amherstburg, Ontario. She was the mother of Fr. Timothy Kelly, who was later to be the eighth abbot of Gethsemani, serving from 1973-2000.
Wallace Kendrick was with the Catholic Worker movement.
Ethel Kennedy is the widow of Robert F. Kennedy and daughter of George and Ann Skakel (see "Skakel, Ann Brannack" file).
Catherine Kent was a 23-year-old teacher from Dorchester, Massachusetts, at the time of writing.
Walter Kerell writes from the Catholic Worker in New York.
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.
