John Steese was born June 27, 1884 in Mount Holly Springs, Pennsylvania, the younger son of James and Anna Shaeffer Steese.  He prepared at the State Normal School in Millersville and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1904 in September 1900.  His older brother James graduated from Dickinson in 1902. He, like his brother, was a member of Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity but left the College in 1902 and returned to Mount Holly.  There he worked for the Mount Holly Paper Company.

Steck was commissioned and rose to the rank of captain in the Chemical War Service of the United States Army.  He died of influenza at Camp Humphreys on October 2, 1918.