Sister Therese Lentfoehr
Sister Therese Lentfoehr was a poet in her own right and taught at Marquette and Georgetown Universities. She and Thomas Merton “met” through their verse in 1939 when they had a brief correspondence. Then, after he entered the Trappist order, Merton began sharing with Sister Therese all his personal diaries, journals, and drafts of his poetry. They met several times, meetings she described as “rich occasions of spiritual and poetic exchange.” She died at the age of seventy-nine.