Name: Lisa Vecoli

Occupation: Retired curator of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies at the University of Minnesota Libraries, the largest LGBTQIA-specific archival repository in the Upper Midwest

In her blood: Lisa’s father, Rudolph Vecoli, was the longtime director of another special collection in the U of M Libraries, the Immigration History Research Center Archives. “I grew up literally in the stacks. We’d go to pick him up, and he was never ready, so my brother and I would play hide and seek in the stacks.”

The Tretter Collection’s significance to the LGBTQIA community: “We have a story to tell. This is what our experience is. This is what’s important to us.”

Proudest contribution: Her role in creating, developing, and managing the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project, which documents the experiences of transgender and gender-queer people in the Upper Midwest

Donation motivation: Vecoli and her wife, Marjean Hoeft, have included gifts to support the archive in their wills. “I wanted to support something that was important to me, and I wanted to support something where I knew the gift I was making would make a difference. I want [my estate gift] to go toward paying students to work in the archive because I know that helps the archive, and I know it’s transformational and life-changing for the students who get to be there.”

History is the future: “I want young people today to celebrate all the freedom they have, but I never want them to turn their back on the fact that it could all disappear. And I hope they never have to fight like we had to fight.”

Learn more about making a gift to the University of Minnesota through your will or trust.