The Ellis family share their life story of CHRISTINE (QUAGLIA) ELLIS

NORTHBOROUGH

Christine Kathryn (Quaglia) Ellis, 88, of Northborough, died on Thursday, December 25, 2025. She had been married to Robert P. Ellis for 58 blissful years until his death last year. She is now survived by her son Matthew and her daughter Kathryn. Sadly, her other son Anthony passed away in 2014. She also leaves behind three grandchildren, Phoebe, Ian, and Mia. Christine will be missed in a profound way by all of the surviving relatives and friends who knew her throughout the decades that she lived.

Christine Quaglia was born in Marlborough, Massachusetts in 1937, the daughter of Antonio Quaglia and Ida Rose Quaglia. She grew up as a Marlborough resident who was proud of her Italian American heritage. She attended Saint Michael's High School in Hudson. While a sophomore there, Christine fully discovered books, started reading them seriously, and then proceeded to record annual lists of titles that she would take on and complete each year. It became her lifelong literary project. She read classical fiction, personal essays, historical works including biographies, philosophy, and especially poetry. After graduating from Saint Michael's in 1955, she attended Emmanuel College in Boston and majored in English. She graduated from Emmanuel in 1959.

Following that, Christine returned to Mitchell Elementary School, where she was once a student herself, and taught from 1959 to 1964. She met Robert Ellis at a summer program in Middlebury, Vermont while she was taking courses at Boston College. She soon received a Masters degree in English from Boston College, just as Robert had done. Christine and Robert were married in 1965 and they moved to their Northborough house a year later. After working as an instructor at Marlborough High School from 1964 to 1966, Christine began devoting her life exclusively to her new family. Her extraordinary love powerfully influenced and shaped her husband and three children, and they all soon discovered the remarkable extent of her character and her abilities. Eventually, she did go back to work at the Northborough Public Library during the 1980s.

Professors and others, recognizing her grasp of poetry, did encourage Christine to pursue an academic career. And indeed, such a career was a big dream of hers. Ultimately, she succeeded in making it possible for her children to achieve many of the worldly goals that she could not. Kathryn became a doctor of medicine and Anthony accepted a position as professor of English, just like Robert once did.

Christine was a true bibliophile of the grandest kind. Her most favorite authors included the naturalists Henry David Thoreau and William Wordsworth. In her later years, she worked at a local bookstore and also zealously took part in local book clubs. And finally, when she died, the total number of books that she had read and recorded in her list project had expanded to over 4,000, thus demonstrating quite an impressive dedication to her own personal enlightenment.

Christine became involved in several other things as well. For example, she and Robert were longstanding members of and participants in the Northborough Historical Society. Christine produced a great deal of beautiful and creative embroidery, actually winning an award for a quilt that she had designed and woven in 1991. She transformed her house into a living home. And, she inspired so many people with her wonderful disposition, whether she had known them for a long time or had just met them casually.

A calling hour will be held on Friday, January 2, 2026, from 9:30am – 10:30am at Hays Funeral Home, 56 Main Street, Northborough. Christine's funeral will immediately follow at 10:30am in the funeral home. Interment will take place in Howard Street Cemetery, Northborough.

To leave a condolence online, please visit www.HaysFuneralhome.com.