[1] She was raised in New York, and summered at Elm Court, a mammoth shingle-style cottage in Lenox, Massachusetts.

[1] Uninterested in the débutante social circles of her peers, she preferred playing the piano at Sunday school.

She took a keen interest in religion, delivering small sermons to her brothers and sisters, and later considered her faith important to mask the guilt of being born into a wealthy family.

[5] After her husband's death in 1949, she donated the family's 277-acre Mount Kisco estate, Dellwood, to the Moral Rearmament movement.

[5][7] Emily's parents commissioned the architectural firm of Carrère and Hastings to design a mansion for the couple at 9 East 91st, on land purchased from Andrew Carnegie; it was known as the John Henry Hammond House.

Many greats of jazz played in the house, including Benny Goodman[10] Rachel Hammond Breck noted that her mother's parties never went for long, mainly due to her refusal to serve alcohol.