Her father hailed from Gloucester, Massachusetts, and her mother's family descended from seventeenth-century settlers of Haverhill and Chelmsford, Massachusetts, although her mother grew up in New Hampshire. Ednah's father was wealthy, operating a thriving Boston wholesale grocery business. Her parents were resourceful, known for their waste- not-want-not thrift: her father salted down a barrel of pork every year, and her mother made her own soap. Her mother was a Calvinist; her father, a Universalist and an early believer in women's rights and abolitionism, a legacy that was passed down to Ednah.
Ednah was educated at private schools in Boston until she was about sixteen years old. In her Reminiscences of Ednah Dow Cheney (1902) she defines her schooldays as rebellious. Her education included schooling conducted in turn by the Misses Pemberton, William B. Fowle, and Joseph Hale Abbot at the Mt. Vernon School. During elementary school, she petitioned to make Christmas a school holiday. Correspondence shows that when she was thirteen, she and Caroline Wells Healey exchanged letters concerning the status of women. Records indicate that Ednah was requested to leave Abbot's school because of disciplinary problems.
Littlehale became acquainted with the Alcott family while working on abolitionist causes before the Civil War.
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