Chikako Shida was born in 1910 in Ooisawa, Yamagata (now Nishikawa) as the eldest daughter of a prominent family. Her father Soujirou was the principal of a local elementary school and her mother died during a particularly difficult childbirth. At that time, Ooisawa had no doctors, and by the time they rushed her mother to a neighboring town it was too late to save her. Because of this incident, and recognizing that Chikako was a particularly clever child, Soujirou had early hopes that she'd grow up to become a doctor. Wanting to fulfill her father's wishes, Shida attended what is now Tokyo Women's Medical University. After graduating, she returned to Ooisawa where she devoted the rest of her life to rural health care.