[1] She was the daughter of Dr. Antonio Mestre y Domínguez (1834–87), who founded several scientific societies in Cuba and introduced the ideas of Charles Darwin.
[2] Although she did not have a formal academic career, she studied the programs given by the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, and she learned Latin, Greek, French, English and Italian, and the literature of these languages.
After being unjustly denied the position of director of the Colegio Heredia she gave up any attempt to play a role in public life, and dedicated herself to her studies.
[1] Laura Mestre translated Homer's poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, into Spanish, the first woman to do so, but only fragments were published.
She also translated the epinikia of Pindar, poems by Sappho and Anacreon, and popular songs of modern Greece in her 1929 Estudios griegos.