Gina Hagen
Bonnie Monte, bonnie.monte@gmail.com
Between her work for CSA #18 (Parks) and the SVNA — where she serves as president — and her outgoing personality, Gina is a neighborhood force of nature.
“I try to be of service to community,” she says with modesty. “It’s important to help make sure that local government knows that we care about what happens here.” Gina appreciates the diversity of people in Santa Venetia, all with different backgrounds and different points of view — but with a shared interest in the neighborhood. And she loves the natural beauty that surrounds us. “I can sit in my backyard and look up and see all sorts of birds. Our wetlands are unique.”
Gina knows Santa Venetia well, having grown up here. She went to school at Old Gallinas, Davidson Middle School, and San Rafael High. She remembers kids at Davidson teasing her because she came from an area considered to be the wrong side of the tracks and she didn’t have the trendy clothes that other kids wore. “That experience helped me learn who I was and own it,” Gina says. Santa Venetia was a kids’ paradise as far as she was concerned, with all the kids out and about and hardly a grown-up in sight. “You never saw a parent at the park unless a kid was getting in trouble,” she remembers. Gina took ballet lessons at a school located at the long-gone mall on Adrian.
After high school, she moved to New Mexico for a time, but missing the ocean drew her back to California. She began studying to become a voice-over actor, and over the past 20 years she’s voiced commercials, educational narration, games, and more. One of her instructors back then ended up becoming her husband! Gina and Joe lived in San Francisco for a time, then moved back to Gina’s beloved Santa Venetia about 15 years ago to be close to her mom.
As many in the neighborhood know, Gina had surgery last November to remove a brain tumor. The diagnosis and treatment were a long time coming. Despite increasingly alarming neurological symptoms, Gina was misdiagnosed by doctor after doctor for nearly a decade. But Gina didn’t give up her pursuit until the problem was finally discovered. Gina is still recovering from the radiation, the drugs, the surgery, and the long-term effects of the undiagnosed tumor, working diligently at physical therapy in combination with integrative medicine and Pilates.
She is eminently grateful to the outpouring of support she, Joe, and their two kids received from the community during this difficult time. “People shared well wishes, flowers, delicious home cooked breads and meals, made donations to help us stay afloat, provided rides to appointments or to get the kids to or from school, and lots of kind thoughts and prayers,” Gina says. “We couldn’t have made it through this experience without all of you!”
Laurie Stesse
- Marilyn Bagshaw, marilyn@mediatunnel.com
I was born in Bishop, California where my mother worked at Manzanar, the Japanese internment camp. She worked with the Shoshone Indian tribe as well. The family relocated to Sausalito before I turned one year old. We lived on the waterfront where my sister and I played on the old wooden ferries and the ships left over from Marinship.
My dad moved to Costa Rica when I was 22. I went down to visit and stayed for two years learning Spanish, traveling, playing on the Pacific, as well as the Atlantic/Caribbean coast.
When I returned to California, I resumed my interest in dance and music. I helped start the first San Francisco Carnaval and danced in the parade for years.
My Irish Mohawk Indian sweetheart needed a deckhand to do a salmon trip. He had converted a Vietnamese wooden Junk (type of boat) into a salmon fishing vessel. We went out under the Golden Gate after filling the holds with ice. We were mighty small under that giant Golden Gate. We ran into gillnetters the second day. The nets fouled our gear, so we were unable to fish. We limped to the Farallon Islands. A huge whale was right next to the boat. Its eye was gigantic. With one flipper it could have crushed our vessel. I communicated with it for a while, eye to eye. It had barnacles all over. It finally left. My sweetheart’s fisherman friends came to the rescue. They delivered new gear at five in the morning, so we were able to continue fishing. We made it home safely with a good catch.
I met my husband in a gospel choir. We traveled throughout the United States with his work as sound engineer at gospel conventions. I also was honored to have been all the way to Japan as a loyal alto in the choir.
We married, had a son, and I worked my way through nursing school. We moved to Santa Venetia in 1991. My husband passed away in 2011. Our son went to the Old Gallinas School, then San Rafael high now lives in the Pacific Northwest.
I have worked in many hospitals throughout the Bay area. I currently work as a nurse and have a Foot Care practice, which I love.
Gardening, swimming, qigong, & playing & listening to music including African and Latin, keep me relatively sane. I am so glad to live in this wonderful neighborhood.