Lawless incorporated and took out a charter for the Catholic Ladies of Ohio, the first insurance and benevolent society for women in the United States.

[2] Up to that time, she had shown no especial literary taste, but when she went back to her alma mater to take a post-graduate course, she intermingled with her studies a rhymed translation of the first of the Satires of Horace.

[3] She began writing poetry in 1886,[2] sending poems and fiction to eastern magazines, where they found ready acceptance and fair remuneration.

[3] After several years of raising a family, she again set forth her work as a writer, this time with a clearer perception of the meaning of life, with a better understanding of her own powers, and with higher purposes.

She incorporated and took out a charter for the Catholic Ladies of Ohio, the first insurance and benevolent society for women in the U.S., and was for six yearsm secretary of this organization.