Deanne Burch was born and raised in Toronto, Canada, eventually attending the University of Toronto and obtaining both a B.A. in liberal arts as well as a B.A. in social work. She moved with her husband Tiger (Ernest Burch Jr.) in 1964 to a primitive village eighty miles above the Arctic Circle in Alaska. After 1965, she and Tiger lived in several different places including Winnipeg, Manitoba and Kotzebue, Alaska, before settling in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where they lived until his death. Deanne now calls Lemoyne, Pennsylvania, her home, and has three adult children and seven grandchildren who live in different parts of the country.