 Anne de Vere Cole was born to Major William Utting Cole, of West Woodhay House.Her mother, Mary de Vere, was Irish, and traced her descent to the 15th Earl of Oxford; she inherited Issercleran, Craughwell, County Galway, in 1914.Her brother was the noted prankster Horace de Vere Cole (1881–1936), who inherited the family house sometime after 1889; it was later owned by John Huston and then Merv Griffin and is now known as St Cleran's House.