Hera Tzortzopoulou Leighton

Leighton, Dr. Hera Tzortzopoulou

Golden Valley, Minn. - Dr. Hera T. Leighton, age 88 of Minneapolis, Minn., died on Sept. 21, 2025. She was a Minnesota resident for thirteen years. She was born in Athens, Greece, to Charalambos Tzortzopoulos, a jurist and law school professor, and Josephine Karger, a former nurse. Having lived through the Second World War and the Greek Civil War, she emigrated to the United States in 1956 to study at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland, from which she graduated in 1959. Obtaining bachelor’s and master’s degrees in home economics, English, and German, she was awarded a doctoral degree in German language and literature from the University of Illinois. She worked as a cataloger of foreign books in several major U.S. university libraries between the early 1960s and the 2010s, and she taught both English and German at U.S. colleges and universities over a period of almost forty years.

Dr. Leighton travelled frequently with her husband of thirty years, the late Dr. Lauren G. Leighton, with her two sons, and with friends. She enjoyed reading, watching movies, and listening to music. Though a long-time resident of Illinois, she was married to a Minnesota native and had several personal connections to the Twin Cities.

Her immediate surviving relations are two sons, Denys Leighton and Jamie Leighton, and a daughter-in-law, Sudeshna Mazumdar-Leighton. A Visitation will be held from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, September 26th, at Gearty-Delmore Chapel of Saint Louis Park, 3960 Wooddale Ave. S. 55416. Memorials preferred to benefit Alzheimer's research and animal shelters.