Chris Ulrick Neely was born in Yosemite Valley where his father, Santa Barbara potter Bill Neely, was a ranger-naturalist. The first of five sons and one daughter, he was named after Bill’s friend Chief Leemee (Chris Brown) of the Miwok tribe, who performed a Fawn Dance, also known as a baby dance, in dedication to his namesake. Yosemite became Chris’s summer playground.
But Santa Barbara was home, in a community gathered together on Mountain Drive by Bobby Hyde, who sold the original families the land. And what a community it was! The children wove in and out of each other’s houses, as well as trails and forts scattered across the properties. Bill crafted cups with each neighbor’s name, so that everyone would be welcomed on impromptu visits. Chris’s mother, Barbara, filled the house with flute music and the aroma of freshly baked bread. Organic vegetables came straight from her garden. At dinnertime, a conch shell was blown to call their six children — Chris, Dana, Severin, Benji, Tessa, and Jeff — home.
Being the eldest child had its advantages. Maternal grandma Irma Cooke, who herself had three children, took her oldest three grandchildren to Europe on an elegant ocean liner. They traveled through the Panama Canal all the way to her family home in England. Meals aboard the ship were very formal affairs involving lots of silverware and etiquette.
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