Walk through any public space, and notice the names on plaques and markers: on park benches and elevators, above auditorium entryways, in performance hall lobbies and museum galleries. Weisman Art Museum (WAM) has such named spaces throughout the building, acknowledging the generosity of individuals and families whose giving makes it possible for structures like ours to be built, expanded, and maintained. These names represent the folks whose contributions fuel the programs, exhibitions, and learning opportunities at the Weisman benefitting generations of students, campus faculty and staff, and community visitors. The names on the walls and in gallery spaces stand in for people in the Weisman’s community whose lives and stories are woven into the brick and mortar life of this place. 

For example, wander through the Weisman and notice the names above the museum’s ceramics gallery: Leo and Doris Hodroff. Recently, I sat down for coffee with the couple’s niece, Shirajoy Abry, to find out more about the family behind the name. She spent a lot of time with her aunt and uncle in her growing up years - summer vacations, holiday breaks, long weekends. She says the Hodroffs were quiet people, even with family—successful, but never ostentatious. Shirajoy fondly remembers times the family spent outdoors and on the water. Avid boaters, they spent a lot of time out on Lake Minnetonka and along the St. Croix River. As she tells me about them, she notes Leo’s sly sense of humor. “He was reserved, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have opinions,” she laughs.

Leo and Doris were steadfast in their support for their nieces and nephews, paying their way through college so they could graduate without debt. “The only time I remember Leo being really frustrated with me was when he found out I took out student loans to pay for grad school,” she remembers. “He kept telling me, ‘you should have come to me to help with this!’”

Leo Hodroff was born in 1917 and raised in a middle-class family, active in their local synagogue and Minneapolis community. At 15 years old, Leo boldly approached his father with a pitch for a new business idea: He argued that their family’s neighborhood didn’t have a funeral home of its own, and needed one. He persuaded his dad to provide the seed money and support. While still in high school, he established Hodroff & Sons Funeral Chapels, working there with his father, and, later, completing his degree in mortuary science at the University of Minnesota. 

In 1941, still working with the funeral home, he founded another new business, L.H. Kellogg Chemical Company-Kelco Supply Company, inventing and selling a new chemical solution for mortuary practice, along with sundry other products, for mail order. His career paused for a bit during World War II, when he served for three years in the Navy Air Corps. After he returned from the war, his business ventures expanded further to include real estate holdings in the Twin Cities, which he operated as Morgan Management and Uptown Realty. 

Doris Hodroff was born and raised in New Richmond, Wisconsin. As a young woman, she moved to the Twin Cities to attend business school. A new graduate looking for work, she applied for a position in Hodroff’s office. “It was her first and last interview,” Shirajoy laughs. The couple worked together for years, their relationship growing quietly. The two married in 1965. Before they retired, Doris had worked alongside Leo for 30 years at L.H. Kellogg Chemical Co., handling sales and advertising for the business. 

She was an avid reader and had an artistic bent as well, taking creative writing classes at the University of Minnesota, off and on. Shirajoy says she continued writing throughout her life: plays, poetry, fiction. She kept her writing private, Shirajoy says, but it was a personal creative practice she maintained for years, as evidenced by the many journals and notebooks she left behind. 

Leo was a collector all his life, with an abiding interest in architecture, art, and design. His niece Shirajoy shares the family story: “He was golfing in Palm Beach, Florida with friends, and their game was delayed by rain. He happened on a small gallery and shop to wait out the storm,” and was immediately taken with the ceramic works he saw there. “He wasn’t even that much of a golfer,” she says, “it was just chance that he went in that day.” According to family lore, that’s when he bought his first piece of Chinese export porcelain. He and Doris went on to become passionate, lifelong collectors of export ware and European porcelain. (The Hodroffs’ notable ceramics collection of Chinese export porcelain has since been featured in two scholarly publications by David S. Howard, The Choice of the Private Trader and, in collaboration with Ronald Fuchs, Made in China.)

As she talks about their collection, Shirajoy remembers Leo kept meticulous files containing his research on every single piece: organizing them by geography and historical context, provenance, cultural and historical significance, themes, materials, artist information. Over their lives, Leo and Doris collected around 1200 artworks in all, more than 800 of which were Chinese export porcelain. The couple lived surrounded by their art: in addition to the porcelain, they collected more than 70 paintings by American, modern, and local artists, some Asian tapestries and scrolls. 

The couple’s plans for their art collection has proven to be as thoughtful as Leo’s detailed archive: the Hodroffs donated artworks to museums here and around the country, contributing significant ceramics collections to Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Winterthur Museum (Wilmington, Delaware), Norton Museum (Palm Beach, Florida), and the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN), and more than 700 pieces gifted to the Weisman. 

Indeed, the Hodroffs supported the Weisman generously at pivotal points throughout the museum’s evolution and growth, making their first gift to the museum in 1983, the same year the U of M Board of Regents officially re-dubbed the University Art Gallery to the University Art Museum (which later became known as the Weisman). Leo and Doris continued to support the museum throughout the campaign to build the iconic Frank Gehry structure we call home today, as well as during the building’s expansion campaign in the 2000s. It was during the museum’s expansion that Leo and Doris committed an estate gift to name the ceramics gallery and endow the museum’s work of exhibiting and studying ceramics. 

The Hodroffs’ generosity can be felt throughout the University of Minnesota. Leo maintained a strong commitment to his alma mater, with both lifetime giving and estate giving, to support and establish undergraduate scholarships. In fact, philanthropy, for the benefit of their community, synagogue, and Leo’s alma mater, was a throughline of the Hodroffs' lives together. The legacy of their planned giving continues to this day, through their artwork and the lasting ripples of their planning and generosity. “It wasn’t about them,” Shirajoy says. “They wanted their collection to speak for itself.” 

Learn more about the Hodroffs' collection, and upcoming auctions of materials from their estate at Revere Auctions website.