Bache was born Alice Odenheimer, daughter of Pauline Freyan and the Lane Cotton Mills textile scion Sigmund Odenheimer in New Orleans. She graduated from Tulane University, then earned a master's degree in philosophy at Columbia University. Her children from her first marriage to William de Young Kay were Paul Kay, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University, of California, Berkeley, and Ellen Kay. In 1954 Alice Odenheimer married brokerage firm head Harold Bache.
