[4] Early in her childhood, Reed displayed her fondness for music, in which art her mother was proficient, the leading amateur singer in the city, a pianist and harpist.

As soon as Reed could comprehend the value of notes and lay hold of the simplest exercises, her mother began to train her.

Her parents determined that her earnestness should be seconded by the very best teachers in the U.S., and Reed was sent in 1877 to New York City, where, under Sebastian Bach Mills, she made great progress, but still more under Madame Teresa Carreño .

To those lessons she added later on the study of ensemble music as a preparation for orchestral works, under the guidance of leading members of the New York Philharmonic Club.

[1] She was very practical in her philanthropy, and since first forming her class, which always averaged forty pupils, she was never without one or more whom she taught free of charge.

In stepping out from the conventional life of a society belle and conscientiously following the voluntary course she marked out for herself, she was a new departure from the old order of things among the favored young women of the South.