This is a transcription of the Edna L. C. (Little) Houck biography from New Hampshire Women: A Collection of Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Daughters and Residents of the Granite State, Who are Worthy Representatives of their Sex in the Various Walks and Conditions of Life, The New Hampshire Publishing Co., Concord, NH, 1895, page 203.
Edna L. C. (Little) Houck
ENDOWED with rare personal charms, a fine stage presence–tall and “most divinely fair,”–an exquisite voice and gracious manner, few women of her years ever more delighted an audience than the gifted young reader and elocutionist, formerly Edna L. C. Little of Nashua, now Mrs. Houck of Penn Yan, N. Y. Miss Little is a native of Lisbon, but resided in Nashua from childhood until her marriage some two years since to E. S. Houck, a prosperous young business man of Penn Yan. She is the daughter of Milo Little, a Union soldier and member of Post 7, Nashua, and Maria (Carleton) Little, a worthy woman and an active worker in the cause of the veterans. Graduating from the high school at the age of seventeen she began the life of a teacher; but, her health not warranting its continuance, she took up the study of music and elocution, as well as painting under the best teachers in Boston. To her study of elocution and physical culture, faithfully practised, she owes her present excellent health. She graduated with honor, and the degree of O. B., from the Emerson School of Oratory in 1891, and soon became a successful teacher and popular public reader, commanding engagements throughout New England, and in the state of New York, and receiving the hearty commendation of press and public wherever heard. Although offered important positions in other states, she declined them all, retaining her Nashua home with her parents until her marriage: pursuing her study, teaching classes in physical culture, and filling her constantly increasing public engagements. Possessed of marked dramatic ability she has frequently been urged to adopt the stage and though her inclination has not been in that direction, she might have clone so with every prospect of brilliant success. Loving her public work, she has continued the same, and extended her field of labor, with commensurate reward, since her marriage and settlement in the wealthy old town of Penn Yan, in whose social life she is already a bright adornment.