Her ancestors and relatives on the Herreshoff side of the family were – and still are – notable naval architects and industrial chemists from Bristol, Rhode Island.

One of her nephews, Guido Borgianni [it] (1914–2011) – a son of her half sister, Sarah Lothrop Herreshoff (maiden; 1889–1958) – was an American-born Italian painter.

In 1899, she enrolled for classical art education at the Académie Julian, where she was taught by Jean-Paul Laurens, whose Impressionistic use of color had a strong influence on her own style,[2] and by Benjamin Constant.

[5] During the course of her studies, Herreshoff would often return to the United States and summer in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, or Cape Ann, Massachusetts, a location that would often appear in her landscapes.

[3]: 11 In 1903, Herreshoff returned to the United States, to live in Brooklyn,[3]: 12  although she also showed paintings at the Rhode Island School of Design that year.

[3]: 13 In December 1910, Herreshoff married her distant cousin, Charles Eaton, an employee of General Electric, in Providence and then moved to Schenectady, New York with him.

At sixty-six, in 1941, she married the thirty-eight-year-old Euchlin D. Reeves, a graduate of Washington and Lee University School of Law[2] whom she had met at a ceramic collectors' club.

[9] The pairing, which at least one writer has suggested was based on a shared love of collecting rather than any romantic attachment,[10] was described as "a fragile union,"[11] although they did remain married for over twenty-five years.

[10] As the Washington and Lee treasurer James Whitehead described it: "The highly personal collection that began as an orderly display of antiques for [the Reeves’] pleasure and viewing by friends and other collectors slowly became unmanageable.

In doing so, they would keep all the unimportant pieces—inexpensive plates, cups and saucers given as premiums at local movie theatres on Saturday nights and dishes given with the purchase of gasoline added to their eclectic accumulation.

[3]: 16 Herreshoff bequeathed her collection, now numbering over 2,000 pieces of Chinese export porcelain as well as British and Continental European examples,[9] to Washington and Lee University.

[7] After Herreshoff's artworks were brought to the university, treasurer James W. Whitehead and art professor Marion Junkin cleaned the glass on the paintings and were surprised by the talent they displayed.