Higgins married U.S. Air Force Major General William Evans Hall, a decorated WWII bomber pilot, in a Washington, D.C. civil ceremony.
On October 6, 1952, Marguerite Higgins married Major General William Evans Hall, a highly decorated U.S. Air Force bomber pilot who had distinguished himself during World War II, in a civil ceremony held in Washington, D.C. The marriage marked a significant personal milestone amid an extraordinarily demanding professional life that kept Higgins constantly traveling to conflict zones and foreign postings.
Hall, a career military officer, understood the demands of Higgins's profession, and the couple navigated a marriage complicated by her frequent, extended overseas assignments—including her subsequent posting as the New York Herald Tribune's Moscow bureau chief. Their union produced children, and Higgins worked to balance her role as a mother with her ongoing career as a globe-trotting foreign correspondent, a juggling act that was itself notable for a woman of her era.
The marriage represented a personal counterpoint to Higgins's public identity as a fearless war reporter; it humanized a woman who was frequently characterized in the press as driven, competitive, and singularly devoted to her career. Her relationship with Hall, and later her family life, was often referenced in profiles of her as evidence that she sought to have both a demanding career and a personal life, at a time when American society offered women few models for combining the two.