Patricia Reese, a retired furniture company vice president who helped establish what is now known as the Facial Pain Association, died of Lewy body dementia Jan. 19 at the Oak Crest Village retirement community. She was 77.

Patricia Rowan, the daughter of a grocer and a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised on Patapsco and Riverside avenues.

After graduating from Catholic High School in 1950, she went to work at the Baltimore Stationery Co., where she met her future husband, Thomas Reese.

They married in 1957 and settled in Loch Raven Village. In 1979, the couple established Business Furniture Corp. Mrs. Reese was vice president until they closed the company a decade later.

From 1991 until retiring in 1995, Mrs. Reese was secretary to the dean of students at Notre Dame College of Maryland.

For more than 20 years, Mrs. Reese suffered from trigeminal neuralgia, which is a painful inflammation and swelling of the nerves that deliver feeling to the face and eyes.

"She received numerous procedures performed by the healing hands of Dr. Ben Carson at Johns Hopkins Hospital that eventually gave her relief," said a son, Timothy J. Reese of Severna Park.

Mrs. Reese and her husband helped establish the Trigeminal Neuralgia Association - now the Facial Pain Association - which serves as a support group for those suffering from the disease.

Mrs. Reese was the organization's first board secretary and was the recipient of the organization's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Mrs. Reese, who had been an active member of the Loch Raven Village Association, also volunteered at her high school reunions and at Immaculate Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church's school.

Her husband died in 2003. Since 2006, Mrs. Reese had lived at the Parkville retirement community.

Plans for a memorial service were incomplete yesterday.

Also surviving are another son, Gerard T. Reese of Southland, Va.; a brother, Gerald Rowan of Virginia; and two granddaughters.