Elizabeth Deeken received her Diploma in Nursing from St Johns Mercy Hospital in St Louis, Missouri in1967.She worked in Maternity and Newborn nursing in Missouri and Colorado for 15 years and was head nurse in the newborn nursery at St Joseph’s Hospital in Denver Colorado for 2 years. She received her Certificate of Nurse-Midwifery in 1983 from the University of Mississippi and practiced for three years as a nurse-midwife at Su Clinica Familiar in Raymondville Texas, a freestanding birth center. She moved to Chico in 1986 and attended women in childbirth at Enloe Medical Center, with more than 1800 babies born into her loving hands. She was an ASPO certified Lamaze instructor and has taught childbirth classes both privately and through Butte Community College. She is a member of both the American College of Nurse Midwives and the Calif. Nurse-Midwifery Association. Elizabeth is married to Bill, a public health nurse, and has three children – Colleen, Rebecca and Jonathan and five granddaughters. Elizabeth retired from clinical practice in 2006 and now acts as our guardian grandmother midwife!