Donald Breede, former owner of Hagen’s Fish Market, dead at 77

Donald Breede, part of the second of four generations of the same family to run Hagen’s Fish Market, used to say he believed in the Portage Park store’s founding motto: “Never sell anything you won’t take home to your own family.”

Mr. Breede, a Mundelein resident who’d been diagnosed 19 years ago with pancreatic cancer, died of complications from the disease on April 14, according to his daughter Tammy Jesse. He was 77.

He married into a fishmonger family 55 years ago when he wed the former Charlene Hagen.

Joining the business in the 1970s, he and his wife helped expand it beyond Great Lakes fish, introducing more inventory “from Alaska to Florida to Maine,” their daughter said.

Hagen’s also started selling his wife’s specialty: Charlene’s crab dip.

Rich Hein / Sun-Times file

Young Donald grew up on Grace Street near Six Corners and went to Lane Technical High School. After serving in the Army, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant, he got his bachelor’s degree at Loyola University.

Many of the full-time staffers at Hagen’s have worked there since he ran it.

“He was like a natural leader,” Jesse said, “but people didn’t even realize it because he was so laid-back.”

He was a quietly funny man, she said. When Mr. Breede told his family he wanted hospice care rather than new treatments, the room grew somber but only for a moment, his daughter said: “He looked around at my mom and my brother and my sister and said, ‘Well, I’m sorry I’m going to ruin everyone’s Easter.’ He had an awesome sense of humor.”

She said, “I was one of those kids who was blessed that, when I walked into a room, his eyes would light up, and the same with his grandkids and other kids, and the same with his community and his church.”

Hagen’s — now in the hands of the third and fourth generations of the family — has been operating at 5635 W. Montrose Ave. since 1946, started by Don and Bennett Hagen, sons of a Norwegian American commercial fisherman from the Door County region of Wisconsin.

“They would get up at 4 a.m. to go fishing with my great-grandfather, go to school and repair nets at night,” Jesse said. “My great-grandpa” — Swara Hagen — “mortgaged everything he had, the boats, the house” to help his sons open Hagen’s.

When the business started, she said, “There was one house on the block.”

Hagen’s is known for its smoked fish, made with a hardwood smoker, and smokes catches brought in by customers, too.

The market also sells fresh seafood, sandwiches, fried fish and fried and boiled shrimp. The fried shrimp, perch and smelt boast of including “Grandpa Hagen’s secret blend of spices.”

Mr. Breede also is survived by his wife Charlene, daughter Julie Johnson, son Benjamin Breede, brother Roy and seven grandchildren. Services were held Wednesday.