She was affiliated with the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Newton, Massachusetts Wesleyan Home, among other organizations.

[3] After the completion of her course of study, she engaged for a time in teaching -the longest period being in connection with her alma mater- both before and after her marriage.

Mrs. Steele, as secretary for the State, organized many of the auxiliaries of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Wisconsin.

The presidency of the National WCTU, conferred upon Frances Willard in 1878, had been previously offer to Steele, who refused the nomination.

As a platform lecturer and a parliamentary leader, she was at this period in as constant service as her home duties would permit.

[1] In 1879, her husband having accepted a call to the principalship of Wesleyan Academy, she returned to the East and resided again at Wilbraham, Massachusetts.

She declined many nominations to offices, including the state presidency of Massachusetts for the WCTU,[1] with the remark, “It requires greater wisdom to know when to leave off than when to begin.” Still, in a circle that by most women would have been thought a wide one, she continued for more than a decade to show her interest in all the forms of missionary and temperance work to which her earlier life had been given.