Oh! the Places I've Been

About the Book

Oh! the Places I've Been is a memoir Bernice Livingston Youtz has written primarily for her family and a few friends. She relates childhood in the Depression of the 1930s (she always knew that it was spelled with a capital D), adolescence during World War II, young adulthood, marriage, children in the post-war 1950s. She recalls an early love of reading which led, not surprisingly, to an aspiration for travel, although there was no opportunity for that until she was an adult, no "study abroad" programs or summers hosteling in Europe. She made up for that in work and travel in post-war Europe, and--after her marriage--she and her husband lived in Beirut, Lebanon, for three years. She writes of the great pleasure she took in raising her three children and in the travel she has been privileged to enjoy in recent years. She is grateful for the privilege of having lived in Lebanon and on two occasions in France, has traveled in some sixty countries. She still reads, thinks often of the many people she has known throughout the world.

About the Author

Bernice Livingston Youtz was born in Santa Ana, California, in 1926. She grew up in Los Angeles, graduated from Occidental College, earned a M.A. in French and French Literature and a Teacher’s Credential at U.C. Berkeley. She has taught in France, Lebanon, and several states in the U.S. In 1951 she married Byron L. Youtz (1925-1992), a graduate of CalTech who earned a PhD in Physics at U.C. Berkeley. Together they lived and taught in Beirut, Lebanon, then raised three children in the United States. Byron taught at the American University of Beirut, Reed College, The College of Old Westbury, and The Evergreen State College. Bernice now lives with her older son and his family in Tacoma, Washington, still enjoys traveling.