Maud Isabel Little was the daughter of well-known Northern Territorian John Archibald Graham Little, Post and Telegraph Superintendant, and his wife Matilda Cecily (Johnston), originally of Penola, South Australia. Little's mother died soon after she was born, and she and her siblings were sent south for their education. Her sister Edith, nine years older than Little, attended Miss Brunskill's school in Semaphore, South Australia, then went to Sydney University. As the book Dunham Days shows great familiarity with 'Subiaco', a Benedictine convent on the Parramatta River near Sydney, it is likely that Little received at least some of her education there.
On the death of her father in Darwin in 1906, Little went to live with her sister in Mt Gambier, South Australia. Contemporary records in Northern Territory newspapers indicate that Little was a proficient pianist and violinist, as she and her sister, Mrs Lawrie, are mentioned as having played at public occasions between 1895 and 1901.
