 In 1933, he married Mary Emma Hurst of New Bern, North Carolina.She had moved to New York to become a fashion model and was a chorus line member of the "Roxyettes", the forerunner of "the Rockettes" performing at the then-Roxy Theater before the show moved to Rockefeller Center.In 1941, Hershfield illustrated his first book for humorist H. Allen Smith titled "Lo, the Former Egyptian".