Betty Jeanne Cederlund

Born in 1928 in Roseville, California, Betty celebrated her birthday as September 16 until in her mid 60’s she discovered it was actually the 17th when she needed a passport for a trip to Europe with her daughter.

Betty grew up during the Great Depression and spent several years with her younger sister, Shirley, at San Francisco Protestant Orphanage (now The Edgewood Center for Children and Families) because their mother worked as a live-in housekeeper while their father traveled to look for work. Just a few months later the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opened on Thursday, November 12, 1936 and Betty was able to ride across it in a car that day because her aunt Leila worked in the office of the Bay Bridge Authority.

At age 11, Betty was randomly chosen out of 120 children to receive free piano lessons from a local teacher and it created the main purpose and direction of her life, “From the very first lesson, I knew I wanted to be like her, to teach piano” she had said. She went on to participate in many musical and theater performances including playing the drums in the band at Horace Mann Junior High School.

Betty lived off and on with her mother in San Francisco, her grandmother in Happy Valley, California and spent her high school years with her aunt, Leila Test in Dunsmuir, where she graduated from Dunsmuir High School in 1946.

After high school she attended San Francisco State College with a double major in Music and Education. As a music major she had the opportunity to usher for famous performances at several major venues like the San Francisco Opera and Marine’s Memorial. Betty also sang in the San Francisco State College Festival Chorus and with the Treble Clef Choir, a group of 18 young women.

Life circumstances did not allow her to continue to graduation at that time, but two marriages and divorces later and after three of her children had graduated from college, she herself returned to school in her mid-fifties.

Betty had a number of jobs over her life working as a file clerk, secretary, sales clerk selling all kinds of things including World Book Encyclopedias door-to-door (even though she was afraid of dogs!) and as medical secretary for Redding Ophthalmology Medical Group for 21 years. All of these jobs enabled her to purchase her own home in Enterprise and raise her children there. She was very active in the Catholic church and played the organ or piano at masses for the parishes of St. Joseph in Redding and Sacred Heart in Anderson. She also volunteered as secretary for the Shasta-Tehama-Trinity Chapter, California Council of the Blind for several years.

Teaching piano was always her wish so when Betty became disabled from chronic muscle spasms and couldn’t type anymore she returned to college (commuting 150 miles a day) and in May 1985 at age 56 she graduated from Chico State University with a B.A. in Music with a specialty in Keyboard Pedagogy. Student teaching followed, then post-graduate work in the Suzuki Method and philosophy at Holy Names and other colleges.“Mrs. Cederlund” taught Suzuki piano for 26 years and was a member of the Music Teachers' Association of California, Contra Costa branch (CCMTAC) and her students participated in the Certificate of Merit program, the Sonata Contest, the Baroque Festival and many of her students earned the honor of playing in recitals at statewide conventions and in the Branch Honors Recital.

In 1975 she had purchased a Kawai grand piano and had to remodel her living room with the help of her daughter, Donna, to fit it. When she moved in with Donna and her family in the Santa Cruz Mountains following a serious auto accident in 2013, the piano was donated to the Sacramento Performing Arts Conservatory.

Betty’s favorite books were the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon and she had several opportunities to meet the author and have books signed. The novels inspired a trip to Scotland to trace family roots and see some of the sights including Culloden, where the 1745 Jacobite Rising came to a tragic end. If you’re ever at the new visitor’s center there, look for the Caithness stone with their names engraved in the walkway.

Betty is survived by her daughter: Linda Cartier, son: Emmett Cartier, daughter: Donna Cederlund and her husband Rik Jones as well as grandchildren: Cheri Martin-Long and her husband Nathan, Jeremy Thompson, Abigail Cartier, Anne Cartier, Sequoia Jones and Canyon Jones. Betty was preceded in death by her son, Walter Cartier.

Betty’s remains have been cremated and will be scattered at sea at a later time when the weather is more conducive to boat travel.

In lieu of flowers, please consider donating in Betty’s memory to Edgewood, or a domestic abuse shelter near you or to a mental health organization. You can click on the links below to donate.