She was an active teacher, Sunday school and Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) worker, as well as a missionary and suffrage patron.

She soon became a believer in and an advocate of total abstinence, after seeing something of the effects of the use of intoxicants by a young man who worked for her father on the farm, and on hearing the sneering and abusive language used in referring to him by a neighbor, who was a moderate drinker.

In 1877, she took up the work of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the WCTU in Lynnville, Iowa.

His health had suffered while serving during the Civil War,[5] and after many changes of residence for his benefit, he died in North Platte, Nebraska, in 1880.

Immediately on the organization of the Cheney Methodist Church, Switzer was made its class-leader, and held the position three years.

In 1882, she was appointed vice-president of the WCTU for Washington Territory, and before Frances Willard's visit in June and July, 1883, Switzer had organized in Spokane Falls, Waitsburg, Dayton, Tumwater, Olympia, Port Townsend, Tacoma, and Steilacoom.

She traveled thousands of miles in the work, having attended the national conventions in Detroit, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Nashville, New York City, Chicago.

[4] She served as juror on the petit jury in the district court in Cheney for twenty days in November, 1884, and February, 1885, and was made foreman and secretary of several cases.