Born Mira P. Radielovic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Ricardel is of Croatian descent. Her father, Peter Radielovich, came from Breza, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was 16 years old when he survived the Bleiburg repatriations. After briefly attending Zagreb University, he left Yugoslavia in 1954. After two years in Heidelberg, where he met and married his wife, he arrived in the United States in 1956.