Her mother was Mary Jane Clancy and her father Robert Reid, born in Scotland, was a wealthy merchant and Victorian politician.

She grew up in the Melbourne suburb of Balwyn where she developed an interest in the care of animals, especially horses, and attended school at Genazzano FCJ College.

She originally aspired to pursue a career in singing, but her parents considered such a pursuit inappropriate for a woman of her class, so Reid enrolled in the Melbourne Veterinary College instead in 1902.

[1] Reid graduated from the Melbourne Veterinary College in 1906—she was one of five students who sat the final-year examinations and was the only one to pass.

She regularly exhibited her animals at shows run by the Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria.