In 1969, Beverly “Cookie” Grant hitchhiked to the Woodstock music festival without a ticket and slept on straw. Ellen Shelburne arrived in a VW microbus and pitched a pup tent.
Now, 55 years later, the two longtime friends returned to the famous site in upstate New York, but this time in style. The women, now 76, enjoyed a luxurious two-bedroom glamping tent with comfy beds, a shower, a coffee maker, and Wi-Fi. Unlike their first visit, there was no mud from drenching rains, and they had pavilion seats to watch shows by Woodstock veterans John Fogerty and Roger Daltrey.
“We’re like hippie queens!” Grant joked over breakfast during the trip earlier this month.
The Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, which runs the site, treated Grant and Shelburne to this special stay to promote its new glamping facilities. They also explored Shelburne’s collection of photos from the original festival held August 15-18, 1969.
The once-trampled hillside by the main stage is now a manicured green space near a Woodstock and ’60s-themed museum and concert pavilion. However, the return visit still brought back a flood of memories. Shelburne retraced her steps from when she was a 21-year-old college student, guided by the photos taken by her then-boyfriend and future husband, David Shelburne.
“I’m looking at this person in the photograph, who is me, but a person just starting out in life at that age. And now I’m looking back at sort of bookends of my life,” Ellen Shelburne said. “All these decades later, I’m back at Woodstock and it just brings it all up in such a positive way.”
Grant and Shelburne did not know each other in August 1969 and attended the concert separately. Shelburne came from Columbus, Ohio, with David Shelburne, his best friend, and another woman. They arrived early, bought ponchos after rain was forecast, and she slept in a pup tent.
“I was never cold, wet, hungry, muddy, dirty, uncomfortable, or miserable,” she said. “It was the total opposite.”
Grant went to Woodstock on a whim. A long-haired surfer named Ray invited her and a friend to hitchhike to New York for the festival. Her friend dropped out along the way, but she and the surfer made it to Bethel. The last driver dropped them off at the edge of the epic traffic jam outside the festival and gave them a blanket. Grant walked the last several miles to Woodstock barefoot.
Both women were amazed by Jimi Hendrix, The Who, and other musical acts, but also by the good vibes from the 400,000 or more people who converged on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm.
“If we needed food, someone gave us food. Someone gave us water. We needed nothing,” Grant said.
The two women met months later in Columbus, where they each ran shops near Ohio State University with the men they went to Woodstock with. Both married their concert companions, though Grant got divorced several years later. David and Ellen Shelburne ran a film and video production company together until he died four years ago. Grant moved to Florida and became a chef on mega-yachts before starting her own business providing crews for those big boats.
Each woman kept a spark of the Woodstock spirit. Shelburne said she’s “stuck in the ’60s and proud of it.” They got the idea to return to the festival site last year after sharing oral histories in Columbus for the Museum at Bethel Woods.
This time, during their long weekend of peace, love, and nostalgia, they stayed in a “Luxury 2 Bedroom Safari Tent” with a front deck and bathroom. When it rained, they stayed dry in the museum.
On a sunny Saturday, Bethel Woods senior curator Neal Hitch drove the women around in a golf cart to explore the spots where David Shelburne took his festival photos. Unlike others who focused their cameras on the stage, he documented festivalgoers camping, swimming, selling goods, relaxing, and having fun. Hitch noted that David Shelburne’s images are valuable because they are in sequence, telling a story.
At one stop, Shelburne stood by a tree line, holding a photo of a field full of campers. She was standing where her late husband took the photograph, looking at the same field, minus the campers, 55 years later. Visibly moved, she said “oh” a few times and let out a deep breath before exclaiming, “Wow!”
It broke her heart that her husband is not in the photographs, but she felt his presence that weekend.
The women explored the festival site over several days, from the stage area to the woods where vendors had set up stalls. Despite the changes—the luxury tents, the fences, the museum—they recognized the same mellow, friendly vibes they experienced as 21-year-olds. And they were thrilled to immerse themselves in it again decades later.
“It’s very wonderful to see that it’s in history forever,” Grant said, “and we’re a part of that.”
