Active in the early Women's Crusade movement, 1873, for many years, Smith was a prominent activist in the prohibition campaign in Kansas, as the organizer and president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.)

She resided quite a long while in Wellington, Kansas after her second marriage, on a farm in the northwest part of the town which was once known as a depot of the Underground Railroad, by which fugitive slaves made their way to Canada before the end of the Civil War.

She had an ardent interest in tracing and recording her genealogical relations and left a valuable collection of family matters which her daughter, Mrs. Jennie J. Goodwin, completed.

In referring to those days of frontier life, Mrs. Bell said:—[3] "John taught me how to row, fish and shoot at the mark, for the Indians were still unfriendly, and he said it might be necessary for me to help him defend our cabin from straggling redskins.

Our time was spent much on the water, our boat being built to carry two; and with rifle for duck shooting and our fishing rods, with a well filled lunch basket, the summer days passed with seldom a cloud; but the winter proved a hard one even for that climate, and we decided to return to Ohio early in the coming autumn.

The journey was taken by team in company with some friends, who like ourselves, thought a home in a more civilized country preferable to all the wild lands of Wisconsin.

[1] Now widowed, Mrs. Bell took her young son and returned to her father's home, remaining until after the birth of a daughter some months later.

On the night of his death, all books belonging to his store had been stolen, leaving the business in such a condition that the family feared there would be little, if anything, was left for Mrs.

She decided to write to support herself and children as she had been praised from home papers for short articles written in earlier days.

While shouldering the responsibilities associated with a large farm, she continued to write, being a regular contributor to the Advocate and Guardian, also The Lily, a paper devoted to woman's suffrage, a cause she was ever ready to defend and uphold.

In 1863, the American Tract Society, of Cincinnati, Ohio, offered prizes for Sunday school books and Smith was one of the successful competitors.

It was a thrilling story in real life; the facts having been given her by her nephew, Luther Blair, who came from the south to the old home to die, that he might be laid in the family burial ground.

The loss of this work, which she had spent so much time in compiling, was always a great disappointment to her, and for many years she did not give up the idea that she would some day produce the story again in substance, if not in detail.

"For some years, the widow remained in her home at Oberlin, Ohio where her daughters attended school, paying a portion of her expenses by taking boarders.

Long hours of teaching brought on a severe illness; and in 1865, she was persuaded to give up her college work, and take a much needed rest with her children.

The long trial of the noted Hull baby case proved Smith's strength of character for truth, being offered many times money by the unscrupulous Carrie E. Hull if Smith would return to the home and persuade the home to give up the case.

She married (2) at Oberlin, Ohio, July 1, 1847, Daniel (Sandisfield, Massachusetts, February 27, 1799 – 1879), son of Joel and Nancy Smith.