During a westbound Atlantic crossing aboard the RMS Lusitania in September 1914, Field became enamoured with fellow passenger Evelyn Marshall, and proposed to her before the liner's arrival in New York, less than a week after sailing from England.[3]
On his discharge after the war, Field returned to Chicago where he went to work as a bond salesman at Lee, Higginson & Co. After learning the business, he left to open his own investment business. A director of Guaranty Trust Co. of New York City, he eventually teamed up with Charles F. Glore and Pierce C. Ward to create the investment banking firm of Marshall Field, Glore, Ward & Co. In 1926, Field left the firm to pursue other interests.
Already a recipient of substantial money from the estate of his grandfather Marshall Field, on his 50th birthday he inherited the bulk of the remainder of the family fortune.[4][5] His brother, Henry Field, who was to have shared in the fortune, had died in 1917.[6]
Publishing industry
He was primarily a publisher, and in late 1941 he founded the Chicago Sun, which later became the Chicago Sun-Times. The primary investor in the newspaper PM, he eventually bought out the other investors to become the publisher. He also created Parade as a weekly magazine supplement for his own paper and for others in the United States. By 1946, Parade had achieved a circulation of 3.5 million.
Field died in 1956 of brain cancer. His widow and third wife, Ruth Pruyn Field, who had previously been married to sportsman Ogden Phipps, died on January 25, 1994, at 86.[13] They had two daughters, Phyllis Field and Fiona Field.
By his first wife, Evelyn Marshall (the daughter of Charles Henry Marshall), he had daughters Barbara Field and Bettina Field and son Marshall Field IV. By his second wife, of whom he was the second husband, Audrey Evelyn James, whom he married on August 18, 1930, and divorced in Reno, Washoe County, Nevada, in 1934, he left no issue.