Myrtle Anderson: What Happened To Joni Mitchell's Mother?

Myrtle Anderson is the mother of Roberta Joan “Joni” Mitchell. Myrtle Anderson’s daughter Joni is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and painter. She is regarded as one of the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit. She has received several accolades, including ten Grammy Awards.

Myrtle Anderson: Bio Summary

Who Was Joni Mitchell’s Mother, Myrtle Anderson?

Myrtle Marguerite McKee was welcomed into the world on 24 May 1912, in Saskatchewan, Canada. Her father’s name is James McKee and her mother’s name is Sarah Jane (Henderson) McKee. She was the sister of Lyall Vincent McKee, Cecil N McKee, Gordon Kenneth McKee, and Howard Malcolm McKee.

Myrtle’s ancestors were Scottish and Irish. She grew up on the prairies and had her early schooling at Creelman. She completed her training as a teacher at the Normal School. She became a teacher and taught at several small rural schools. She taught elementary school in southern Saskatchewan. She is said to have once worked as a bank clerk.

Myrtle Marguerite became Anderson after she married William Andrew ‘Bill’ Anderson. Bill was a Royal Canadian Air Force flight lieutenant who instructed new pilots at RCAF Station Fort Macleod. How Myrtle and Bill’s love story began is uncertain, however, they were reportedly introduced to each other by a friend.

According to Wikitree, they got married on 2 September 1942, in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada. Nothing is known about Myrtle’s past relationships or marriages. Myrtle Anderson has not been romantically linked with any man except her husband Bill. Myrtle and her husband Bill Anderson became parents of a daughter Roberta Joan Anderson also known as Joni Mitchell.

Joni was born on November 7, 1943, in Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada. Myrtle and her family moved to different bases in western Canada. After World War II came to an end, Myrtle’s husband Bill Anderson became a grocer. The Andersons moved to Saskatchewan, living in Maidstone and North Battleford. They also moved to Saskatoon.

Myrtle Anderson and Bill had a rough time when their daughter Joni Mitchell contracted polio at age nine and was hospitalized for several weeks. Myrtle Anderson loved and cared for her daughter Joni Mitchell. Per reports, her “loving attention” helped Joni recover from the disease. Joni was 9 when she started smoking.

Joni said: “I started smoking at the age of nine. I had polio, and when I got out of the hospital, I kind of made a pact with my Christmas tree, or maybe it was God, that if I could get my legs back…”

ALSO, READ: Bill Anderson: Where Is Joni Mitchell’s Father Now?

“At that time I’d broken away from the church because I loved stories, and they had a lot of loopholes, and, if you asked the teacher about those loopholes, like, O.K., Adam and Eve meet, they’re the first man and woman, and they have two sons: Cain and Abel. Cain killed Abel, then Cain got married. Who did he marry? It did not go over well.”

“So I refused to go to church in the town for awhile. But I had this debt to pay back because I did stand up, unfurl, and walk. So I joined the church choir and one night after choir practice, in the middle of the winter, a girl had snitched a pack of Black Cat cork from her mother and we all sat in the wintery fish pond in the snow, and passed them around.”

“And you know, some girls choked and some threw up, and I took one puff and felt really smart! I mean I just thought, “Woah!”. My head cleared up. I seemed to see better and think better. So I was a smoker from that day on. Secretly, covertly, and I’m still smoking.” Joni Mitchell was interested in painting at an early age but she struggled at school.

Joni Mitchell eventually considered a singing or dancing career. She said her “childhood longing mostly was to be a painter, yet before I went to art college my mother said to me that my stick-to-it-iveness in certain things was never that great, and she said you’re going to get to art college and you’re going to get distracted, you know.”

“Yet all I wanted to do was paint. When I got there, however, it seemed that a lot of the courses were meaningless to me and not particularly creative. And so, at the end of the year I said to my mother: ‘I’m going to Toronto to be a folksinger.’ And I fulfilled her prophecy.” Today, Joni Mitchell is a successful and well-known singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and painter.

ALSO READ: Kelly Dale Anderson: Inside The Life Of Joni Mitchell’s Daughter

What Happened To Joni Mitchell’s Mother?

Myrtle Anderson died on 20 March 2007 at age 94, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. “She brought so much joy into (our) lives,“ a family friend Ron Lamb said of Myrtle. “Myrtle was a tremendous woman. She was very intelligent.” Bob Hinitt who was also a family friend said “you’d never know Myrtle had a famous daughter. She never bragged about Joni. She was a very unassuming and modest woman.”

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