From 1952 to 1962, Houser worked as an art teacher at the Intermountain Indian School in Brigham City, Utah, which was primarily a Navajo boarding school. The Intermountain years gave Houser time to teach, raise a family, and focus on his painting. He completed hundreds of paintings there, experimenting with watercolors, oils and other media. While at Intermountain, he also worked as a children's book illustrator, providing drawings and paintings for seven titles – including an illustrated biography on the life of his granduncle Geronimo.