Suzanne Butorovich was a high school student from Campbell, California. This is one of the longest know series of correspondence he had with a young person. Merton had dinner with her and her family while visiting California on October 3, 1968.
If the person in correspondence with Merton has full text records in the Merton Center Digital Collections, there will be a numeric link to them below.
This Record Sub-Group is not divided into Series and is arranged chronologically.
Click icons for links: ✓="Published | Library Record", ✉="Scanned" | 🗷="Scanned, Viewable Only at Merton Center"
| # | Date | From/To | First Lines | Pub ✓ | Notes |
| | y/m/d | Merton | | Scan ✉ | |
| 1. |
1967/06/15 |
TALS to Merton |
Sorry for the first mistake but I'm a pretty rotten typist but my penmanship is worst so good luck! |
|
quotes Benjamin Franklin on politics and religion / asks Merton about his thoughts on drugs and the hippy movement / Bob Dylan / asks Merton for submissions to her underground newspaper, Clique Courier / her backstage passes to the Monterey International Pop Music Festival / Paul McCartney and the Beatles
«detailed view» |
| 2. |
1967/06/22 (#01) |
TL[c] from Merton |
I don't know if your letter was a disaster: but anyway, if it was, it was a nice disaster. |
✓ |
Merton's enjoyment of underground movements and publications - sending poem/prose "mosaic" for her newspaper (to later come out in one of his books) - thinks poems sounds like Bob Dylan (likes "Obviously Five Believers") / Merton owns Beatles "Revolver" (likes "Taxman") / the Grateful Dead / LSD / Merton as "hippy monk"
«detailed view» |
| 3. |
1967/06/22 (#02) |
TLS[x] from Merton |
I don't know if your letter was a disaster: but anyway, if it was, it was a nice disaster. |
✓ |
Merton's enjoyment of underground movements and publications - sending poem/prose "mosaic" for her newspaper (to later come out in one of his books) - thinks poems sounds like Bob Dylan (likes "Obviously Five Believers") / Merton owns Beatles "Revolver" (likes "Taxman") / the Grateful Dead / LSD / Merton as "hippy monk"
«detailed view» |
| 4. |
1967/07/03 |
TALS to Merton |
Guess what! You got a new name you didn't need!!!! HELLO!! This is the Disaster Kid from the |
|
"letter to a hippy hermit" / Monterey Pop Festival with grandma / D. T. Suzuki / Butorovich recommends Kahlil Gibran, O. Henry, J.R.R. Tolkien and John Lennon to Merton / asks what he would add or leave out of Seven Storey Mountain / Pablo Picasso / types lyrics - Beatles songs from "Sgt. Pepper" / Ravi Shankar
«detailed view» |
| 5. |
1967/07/18 (#01) |
TL[c] from Merton |
I refuse to call anybody Susie. (I met a girl in a bar in London who was called Boosie Susie thirty |
✓ |
Beatles "Sgt. Pepper" / Merton is familiar with the authors she suggested / recommends some Zen books by Suzuki / from Seven Storey Mountain he'd "cut out a lot of the sermons" and "the sales pitch for Catholic schools" / paradox of organizing the underground press / Ravi Shankar and Indian music
«detailed view» |
| 6. |
1967/07/18 (#02) |
TLS[x] from Merton |
I refuse to call anybody Susie. (I met a girl in a bar in London who was called Boosie Susie thirty |
✓ |
Beatles "Sgt. Pepper" / Merton is familiar with the authors she suggested / recommends some Zen books by Suzuki / from Seven Storey Mountain he'd "cut out a lot of the sermons" and "the sales pitch for Catholic schools" / paradox of organizing the underground press / Ravi Shankar and Indian music
«detailed view» |
| 7. |
1967/08/28 |
HLS to Merton |
I send this quick. I know you would probably not hear so I am writing. I have a feeling that |
|
[attaches newspaper article about the death of Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles] worries that the Beatles will either "break up or tighten up" - distressed about Ringo Starr naming his baby Jason / asks for a Mass for Brian Epstein / seeing Ravi Shankar in Los Angeles
«detailed view» |
| 8. |
1967/08/31 (#01) |
TL[c] from Merton |
The certified letter came today and by the time you get this you will have got back the little pink |
✓ |
Brian Epstein / hippie culture in California
«detailed view» |
| 9. |
1967/08/31 (#02) |
TLS[x] from Merton |
The certified letter came today and by the time you get this you will have got back the little pink |
✓ |
Brian Epstein / hippie culture in California
«detailed view» |
| 10. |
1967/09/06 |
TALS to Merton |
Hullo!! Well, here I am finally home and back in (YIK!!!) school But never fear!!! [sic] |
|
attempts to obtain Ravi Shankar's address / Notre Dame High School - suggestions to play recordings of Merton in a class and descriptions of the nuns there / thoughts about where to go to college / asks if Merton will write a script for a Beatles movie / "Peanuts" comic strip / detailed description of the workings of a tape recorder
«detailed view» |
| 11. |
1967/10/07 (#01) |
TL[c] from Merton |
I am thinking about you: are your ears burning? My house in the woods all full of San Francisco |
✓ |
life in the hermitage / Merton likes Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe, 13th Floor Elevators and Grateful Dead, but not Moby Grape / Japanese Zen people and Merton / Merton fixing up for publication his book Journal of My Escape from the Nazi's / Cables to the Ace / LSD and Timothy Leary's jail sentence
«detailed view» |
| 12. |
1967/10/07 (#02) |
TLS[x] from Merton |
I am thinking about you: are your ears burning? My house in the woods all full of San Francisco |
✓ |
life in the hermitage / Merton likes Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe, 13th Floor Elevators and Grateful Dead, but not Moby Grape / Japanese Zen people and Merton / Merton fixing up for publication his book Journal of My Escape from the Nazi's / Cables to the Ace / LSD and Timothy Leary's jail sentence
«detailed view» |
| 13. |
1967/11/09 |
TALS to Merton |
This is going to be a fast letter. Hello! I am getting very bored with life and, well, ... |
|
class retreat to San Juan Bautista / asking Merton's opinion about going her going to England for college and the requirements / Ravi Shankar spending the semester at Columbia University / asking Merton for a tape on Zen Buddhism / The Beatles / purchased Suzuki book / picture of Merton with hat on Mystics and Zen Masters
«detailed view» |
| 14. |
1967/12/09 (#01) |
TL[c] from Merton |
Sorry for the long delay. I've been very busy. Just had a wonderful time with fifteen cloistered |
✓ |
meeting with fifteen cloistered nuns at Gethsemani / encourages Butorovich to go to school in England, but mentions the tough matriculation / Merton does not know whether he can "put Zen on tape" for her and the nuns
«detailed view» |
| 15. |
1967/12/09 (#02) |
TALS[x] from Merton |
Sorry for the long delay. I've been very busy. Just had a wonderful time with fifteen cloistered |
✓ |
meeting with fifteen cloistered nuns at Gethsemani / encourages Butorovich to go to school in England, but mentions the tough matriculation (handwritten unpublished note states that his information "is probably completely obsolete") / Merton does not know whether he can "put Zen on tape" for her and the nuns
«detailed view» |
| 16. |
1967/12/25? |
HLS to Merton |
This is a surprise "Crimble" box!! This is sent with love from me and my "little sister" Linda |
|
[verso: Butorovich's drawing of a crimble tree] sends a "Crimble box" (also, Chrimble - word coined by John Lennon for Christmas) of presents from her and Linda Macmillan
«detailed view» |
| 17. |
1968/02/11 (#01) |
TL[c] from Merton |
What did you think? That I thought the Crimble box was a bomb and jumped in the lake with it? |
✓ |
Butorovich's give makes Merton "the largest collector of Beatle relics in Kentucky" / the Beatles on TV maybe "the ultimate triumph of Zen" / sending mimeo of Journal of My Escape from the Nazis / Merton gives directions for cooking kasha
«detailed view» |
| 18. |
1968/02/11 (#02) |
TLS[x] from Merton |
What did you think? That I thought the Crimble box was a bomb and jumped in the lake with it? |
✓ |
Butorovich's give makes Merton "the largest collector of Beatle relics in Kentucky" / the Beatles on TV maybe "the ultimate triumph of Zen" / sending mimeo of Journal of My Escape from the Nazis / Merton gives directions for cooking kasha
«detailed view» |
| 19. |
1968/05/20 |
HPCS[x] from Merton |
Do you know I was in Cal. and tried to call you from the S.F. airport? But I guess I got the wrong |
|
[photocopy of postcard (from Butorovich?) with typed "translation" of Merton's script]
«detailed view» |
| 20. |
1968/05/no |
HPCS[x] from Merton |
I read your long letter--with insertions from Cris, etc., etc.-in Dallas airport. Now I'm at Memphis |
|
[photocopy of postcard (from Butorovich?) with typed "translation" of Merton's script, she adds that the others mentioned in the letter were Cris Cadena, Butorovich's school friend who joined Merton and Butorovich's family for dinner when Merton was in California, and Mary Lou Berryessa, another school friend of Butorovich]
«detailed view» |
| 21. |
1968/06/04 (#01) |
TL[c] from Merton |
Don't mind the letterhead, this is just the secret headquarters of my drug pushing outfit. (aspirins |
✓ |
[letterhead: "Community Council of San Mateo County" "Action Study on Community Health Services"] sending second issue of Monks Pond / asks Butorovich for material from her underground paper
«detailed view» |
| 22. |
1968/09/26 |
TALS[x] from Merton |
Your letter(s) followed me to Alaska and got here just in time. I have not run out on the monastery |
|
[written from Anchorage, Alaska]
«detailed view» |
| 23. |
1968/11/06? |
HPCS[x] from Merton |
India has turned out to be very groovy indeed. The meeting in Calcutta was not very good but as |
|
[photocopy of postcard (from Butorovich?) with typed "translation" of Merton's script, she adds that the others mentioned in the letter were Cris Cadena, Butorovich's school friend who joined Merton and Butorovich's family for dinner when Merton was in California, and Mary Lou Berryessa, another school friend of Butorovich]
«detailed view» |
| 24. |
1982/09/06 |
TALS from Hickey, Regis / to Br. Patrick Hart |
Here are duplicated copies of six letters, apparently from Father Louis (Thomas) Merton, that have |
|
copies of Butorovich's letters given to a graduate of Maur Hill Prep in Atchison Kansas by a woman at Merton's funeral [Butorovich?]
«detailed view» |
|