Tommy Abraham played key role in Ashley`s emergence

If Father Joseph Martin and Mae Abraham contributed the spirit and soul that ultimately would establish Father Martin’s Ashley as one of the country’s most impactful addiction treatment centers, it was a third individual who gave Ashley its early savvy.

Mae Abraham’s husband Thomas (known to all as “Tommy”) used his business experience to guide key decisions that Mae and Father Martin would make in the Maryland center’s formative days. Later, the Abrahams’ decision to take Father Martin into their home established an enduring family bond.

The Ashley staff announced on Friday that Tommy Abraham had died that morning at the age of 91. He had been in failing health for some time, but the news still hit hard in the Ashley community and beyond

Ashley president and CEO Father Mark Hushen said of Tommy, “He worked quietly behind the scenes to ensure that Ashley received the best from our vendor relationships. Tommy credited Father Martin with helping his wife find recovery over 45 years ago, and spent his life in support of helping Father Martin and Mae help others suffering with the disease of addiction.”

Each year, Father Martin’s Ashley honors a company that provides a product or service to the facility with its Tommy Abraham Award, recognizing a business that operates in the spirit of the treatment organization’s mission.

Jane Maher’s 1997 book One Step More, chronicling Father Martin’s life and work, discusses Tommy Abraham’s pivotal role in the decision to select the waterfront estate property in Havre de Grace, Md. (Havre de Grace translates to “Harbor of Mercy”) that would become the Ashley campus. He highlighted the convenience of the site’s location near three major Eastern city airports, and stressed that even the major renovations that would be necessary at the location would prove far less costly than the expense of building a facility from the ground up.

Tommy Abraham had learned about the property’s availability during his weekly poker game with friends in the business community. Former U.S. Sen. Joseph Tydings had owned the property.

In her book about Father Martin, Maher wrote of the occasion of the Abrahams’ 50^th wedding anniversary dinner in 1996, “`On that beautiful summer evening, it became apparent to everyone who was present that Mae and Tommy were absolutely happy not only because they were together, but because they were a part of something that was so much larger than they were.”