[1][2] Her father was an architect who designed military hospitals during World War I and later specialized in schools and government buildings.
[1] One of Ficken's first major projects was a farming estate for a wealthy Maryland woman, Clara Hyatt, that she began work on in 1940.
[1][5] The overall design program was predicated on the idea that the farm could be run by one woman alone during the war, when the draft drew away many male farmhands.
A slightly later project was an award-winning restaurant reconstruction whose success helped her to secure a large postwar commission from UMD.
[1] Ficken was one of 12 architects featured in "Early Women of Architecture in Maryland," a traveling exhibition organized by the AIA that opened in June 2015.