When he was 17 years old, while working on a farm, the owner on his deathbed, asked him before he died to take care of his 38-year-old sister who was paraplegic due to illness.

As a soap manufacturer and dealer, he had to travel a lot, which gave him the chance of meeting people and making new friends wherever he went.

[2] After the death of Mary Haskell in 1894 at the age of 81, Stephen spent the next five years as a missionary in Africa and Australia.

Eventually he proposed marriage to her [as she was widowed] but she declined, suggesting instead that Hetty Hurd would make a good companion for him.

His wife died in 1894, and in 1897 he married Hetty Hurd and with her did evangelistic and Bible work in Australia and the United States.

[6] However, on one occasion Haskell admitted to eating corned beef on his way to England aboard the Majestic as he was alleged to have starved on bread, cheese, and butter.