She studied music in France, with Claude Debussy and Franz Lenhard among her teachers. In 1900 she moved back to Mexico and continued her musical studies at her aunt's solfège school. In 1907, the then 22-year-old de la Portilla, married Leo A. Grever, an American oil company executive, and in 1916 became a U.S. citizen and moved to New York City where she lived for the rest of her life.[1][2]