Ellen MacVeagh Rublee

1932 - 2024

Ellen MacVeagh Rublee

Peterborough NH - Ellen MacVeagh Rublee, 92, of Dublin NH and Washington DC, died on October 19th, 2024, at the RiverMead Retirement Community, Peterborough, New Hampshire surrounded by her family.

Ellen was born on January 31, 1932, in Cambridge, Massachusetts to Ellen Warder Thoron and Francis Wayne MacVeagh. She grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts and visited her grandparents Fanny Davenport (Rogers) MacVeagh and Charles MacVeagh often at "Fasnacloich" in Harrisville, New Hampshire.

She graduated in 1950 from Chatham Hall in Chatham, Virginia, and was a member of the Class of 1954 of Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Our mother "used to think that when her children had flown the coop, she'd be off to graduate school and have a career. But instead she spent 35 years raising children - only 4, but the first was born in 1954 and the last in 1972. In 1990 when the last child went off to college, she discovered that she really didn't want a career after all. She felt it was too late, and she had too many other things that interested her. What she wanted to do was to continue and expand the volunteer work she had been doing."

One of Ellen's many interests included the National Parks and in 1988 the Garden Club of America invited her to serve on their National Committee on Conservation and Public Affairs. As a member of the committee she testified before a committee of the Department of Interior to challenge land use policies in the National Parks in Alaska. Her comment after testifying was that "it was terrifying but fun."

In addition, Ellen was a trustee of the Augustus Saint-Gaudens Memorial in Cornish, New Hampshire and a past president of the Garden Club of Dublin.

Ellen's brother Stuart Wayne MacVeagh, her daughter Margaretta Desmond Gallagher Archie and her husband George Rublee predeceased her.

Her daughter Ellen Warder Gallagher and her husband Rex S. Hungerford, Jr. of Los Angeles, California; her son Arthur Connell Gallagher of Clayton, Missouri; her son Francis Hopkinson Gilbert and his wife Tiffany Soo of Chicago, Illinois and her son-in-law Andrew John Archie of Clayton, Missouri, survive her.

Her grandchildren Alexander Hungerford of Los Angeles, California, Ewen Hungerford of Paso Robles, California, Ellen Archie of Athens, Greece, Samuel Archie of New York City, James Archie of Washington, D. C., Lydia Gilbert and Lorelei Gilbert of Chicago, Illinois also survive her.