Elizabeth (Libby) McCown Langstroth

June 6, 1921 - March 13, 2021

Elizabeth (Libby) McCown Langstroth

Pacific Grove, CA Libby was born Elizabeth Ann Richards on June 6, 1921 in Berkeley, California to Dr. Dexter N. Richards and Louise Taylor Richards. Libby grew up with her older brother Dexter and her younger sister Jean. She caught the travel bug early in life when her family embarked on a trip around the world when she was 13. Her love of the ocean was inspired by her family’s sailing trips on The Sunbeam up and down the coast of California to Baja Mexico and by the works of William Beebe. At the age of 14 she and her brother Dexter built a copper diving helmet based on a design in a William Beebe book, which they used in their pool and the yacht harbor. As a girl Libby dreamed of being an ichthyologist but took a roundabout path to get there.

Libby graduated from UC Berkeley in 1943 with a degree in anthropology. She earned her master’s degree in physical anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1946. That same year she married Theodore (Ted) McCown, who taught anthropology at UC Berkeley, and they settled in Berkeley where they raised three daughters, Ann, Jean, and Faith. The whole family traveled to India in 1958 and 1964, where Libby participated in Ted’s research.

Libby was widowed in 1969 at the age of 48. Libby went back to UC Berkeley, earning her PhD in physical anthropology, and shortly after receiving her doctorate, she met Lovell Langstroth Jr., a doctor of internal medicine, on a blind date at a dinner party set up by friends. She had protested the idea saying she wasn’t interested in doctors, she wanted to meet someone who “went out and did things.” Six weeks later they were married. He won her over with his own love of adventure, learning, and with his scuba diving certification. Libby at the age of 54 became certified as a scuba diver in her own right. In 1980 they moved to Carmel from Berkeley, and audited courses in Marine Biology at Moss Landing Marine Lab, at Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station, and volunteered as docents at the Monterey Bay Aquarium for over 20 years.

Both Libby and Lovell became accomplished underwater photographers, with a darkroom set up in their home. In the mid-1990s they began work on a book about the marine biology of the Monterey Bay, based on their extensive body of photographs. “A Living Bay: The Underwater World of Monterey Bay” was published in October 2000 by the UC Press. Before they retired from diving at ages 75 (Libby) and 80 (Lovell) they had made more than 650 dives in the Monterey Bay, as well as trips to the Indo Pacific, including the Coral Sea, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines, Baja California, Maine, and the Caribbean. Libby and Lovell’s photographs have been on exhibit in natural history museums in the USA and Canada and have had articles published in Natural History and Pacific Discovery magazines. Many of their photographs can still be seen at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in educational displays.

They moved from their house above Pt. Lobos to a cottage at Canterbury Woods in Pacific Grove in the late 1990s, where Libby remained until her passing. She is preceded in death by her husband Lovell, her sister Jean Richards Madigan, and brother Dexter Richards, Jr. She is survived by her daughters Ann McCown, Jean McCown, and Faith Clendenen, granddaughter Melisa Tse, and nieces and nephews Nancy Merwin, Brian Madigan, Ruth Richards, Chet Richards and Dexter Richards III.

To those who knew her, Libby’s life is an example of personal growth and evolution. She leaves a legacy of fearless adventuring and an unquenchable capacity for curiosity and wonder.