[2] Eikema, the daughter of a Protestant minister[3] who was himself involved with the resistance, was born in Benningbroek[1] and grew up in Zaandam.

[4] She joined the resistance proper in 1944 and, now named "Miep", became the personal courier for Walraven van Hall, leader and banker of the movement, entrusted with carrying large amounts of money and arranging meetings of senior resistance members.

[4] Eikema moved to Sweden, and married Frederick Rappe, a member of the nobility, with whom she emigrated to America.

Her husband, a biochemist, got a job at the University of California, Berkeley,[4] and they settled in the San Francisco Bay area, where she worked as an art teacher and ran a Dutch restaurant.

[5] Later the family (by then with four children) moved to Montana, and Eikema divorced her Swedish husband and married an American, Les Ippisch.