[1] Her father was Commodore Cicero Price (1805–1888), an officer in the United States Navy who served in the American Civil War and was Commander of the East India Squadron, and her mother, Elizabeth Homer Paine (1828–1910).

Her first marriage was to Louis Carré Hamersley, a millionaire heir to a real estate fortune in New York City, who died in 1883 and was buried in the Trinity Church Cemetery.

[2] The inheritance she received from her first husband was used to restore Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, Oxfordshire.

[1][3][4][5] As a result of this marriage, which took place on April 30, 1895,[citation needed] she became known as Lady William Beresford.

[2] Before his death on 30 December 1900, they were the parents of one child: Later, she resided at 35 Adelaide Crescent in Hove, East Sussex, where she was convalescent.