E. Allen Ahearn of Quill & Brush passed away January 5th. The price you pay to live is to accept your life will end. Americana Exchange and more recently Rare Book Hub were projects that interested Allen. That gave me the opportunity to know him.
Years ago we would talk about his first wife Patricia’s illness that would end in her passing in 2014. Books had been their solace. He felt both love and obligation to help and found it very difficult. Along the way he found a way to maintain his emotional balance through her period of decline by speaking about their past in the present while Alzheimer’s slowly erased her awareness. It kept her present even as she was slipping away.
Two years later he found a new partner, describing himself as twice blessed. Books were always an important part of his life, but ultimately it was his relationships that made life rich.
His daughter Beth Fisher is now handling their business affairs.
He will be missed.
What follows is his story prepared by his family.
E. Allen Ahearn Has Slipped Away
On Friday, January 3, 2025, Allen Ahearn died peacefully at home in Silver Spring, MD, of complications of myelofibrosis. He is survived by his dear wife Nina Masson, daughters Elizabeth Fisher (Martin) and Dyanne Ryan (John), sisters Anne Hall (Kenneth) and Kathleen Lelis (Gunars), 13 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by his beloved wife of 55 years, Patricia Ahearn, daughter Suzanne Regan (Ralph), and son E. Allen Ahearn, Jr.
After a long and distinguished career working as a Cost Analyst and Contract Negotiator for the Navy Department and Department of Defense, Allen "quit the government" (as he liked to say) and worked a few years in Canada as a consultant before joining wife Pat full-time in the mid-1980s at the Quill & Brush, their bookshop and art gallery in Bethesda (originally established in 1976 in Olney, it continues to this day as an online store). They authored a number of well-respected reference works for booksellers and collectors together, including "Collected Books: The Guide to Identification and Values."
Allen loved jazz, basketball, single-malt scotch, political round-table talk shows (civilized or otherwise), holidays, poker, pets, and people. He was enormously grateful to have been lucky in love twice. At 6' 4" ("you can tell me I'm dying, doc, just don't tell me I'm shrinking") he was an affable and unmistakable presence at any gathering, with a great memory for stories and a terrific voice with which to tell them.
He had a zest for life, wringing every last drop of joy even while in the weeks-long process of dying, which he somehow managed to handle with his usual aplomb perking up for adults and children alike ("Sorry not to get up, I'm having a bad day") and saying near the end, "I've never died before, so I'm not quite sure how to do it." As in most all things, he did a truly fine job.
Allen was a man who no doubt made an indelible mark in ways he never knew. For that and so much more, he will be greatly missed by one and all.
A Funeral Mass at St. Mary's Catholic Church, Rockville, MD, was spoken January 21, 2025. A private interment at Gate of Heaven will be held at a later date.
