Beverly “Cookie” Grant hitchhiked to the Woodstock music festival in 1969 without a ticket and slept on straw; Ellen Shelburne arrived in a Volkswagen minibus and pitched a makeshift tent.
Fifty-five years later, the two longtime friends are finally back at the garden, but this time in a big way.
The women, now 76, recently enjoyed a two-bedroom glamping tent at the upstate New York property, complete with comfortable beds, a shower, a coffeemaker, and Wi-Fi.
This time, there was no mud from the pouring rain, and they sat in the Pavilion seats to watch a show by Woodstock veterans John Fogerty and Roger Daltrey.
“We’re like hippie queens!” Grant joked over breakfast during a trip earlier this month.
Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, the nonprofit that runs the site, rolled out a tie-dye carpet for Grant and Shelburne to promote their new glamping site and to dig deep into the treasure trove of photos Shelburne has taken over the years. A generation-defining festival It took place from August 15th to 18th, 1969.
The once-trampled hillside beside the main stage is now a landscaped green space near a Woodstock- and ’60s-themed museum and concert venue.
But the return brought back memories, and Shelburne was able to relive her journey as a 21-year-old college student through photos taken by her then-boyfriend and future husband, David Shelburne.
“I’m looking at this person in the photograph – myself – just a person at that age, just starting out in life, and now I’m looking back at both ends of my life,” Ellen Shelburne said. “Decades later, I’m back at Woodstock, and it brings back all of it in such a positive way.”
Grant and Shelburne did not know each other in August 1969 and attended separate concerts.
Shelburne came from Columbus, Ohio, with her best friend, David Shelburne, and another woman. They bought tickets, arrived early, bought ponchos at a local store because rain was forecast, and she slept in a cot.
“I wasn’t cold, wet, hungry, muddy, dirty, uncomfortable or miserable,” she said. “Quite the opposite.”
Grant went to Woodstock as a joke.
On the beach in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a long-haired surfer she knew named Ray approached her and a friend and asked, “There’s a music festival in New York. Do you want to hitchhike with me?”
Grant’s friend dropped out, but she and the other surfers made it to Bethel, where the last driver dropped them off at the end of a terrible traffic jam outside the festival and gave them blankets.
Grant walked the last few miles to Woodstock barefoot.
The two women were enthralled not only by the performances of Jimi Hendrix, the Who and other musicians, but also by the good vibes of the more than 400,000 people who flocked to Max Yasgur’s dairy farm, about 80 miles northwest of New York City.
“If we needed food, someone gave us food. They gave us water. We didn’t need anything,” Grant said.
The two women met a few months later in Columbus, where they and the men they had gone to Woodstock with each owned stores adjacent to Ohio State University.
They each married fellow concertgoers, though Grant divorced after a few years.
David and Ellen Shelburne ran a film and video production company together until he passed away four years ago.
Grant moved to Florida and eventually became a chef on a mega-yacht before starting his own business crewing larger ships.
Each woman retained a spark of the Woodstock spirit. “We’re still in the ’60s and we’re proud of it,” Shelburne said.
They were keen to return to the festival grounds last year. Providing oral histories He became a curator at Bethel Woods Museum in Columbus.
Just like in 1969, the women were provided with everything they needed for their recent long weekend of peace, love and nostalgia, except this time it was a “luxury two-bedroom safari tent” with a front deck and a shower in the bathroom — and this time they could stay dry inside the museum if it rained.
On a sunny Saturday, Bethel Woods senior curator Neil Hitch took the women on a golf cart ride to the spot where David Shelburne had taken the festival photographs.
Unlike others who focused their cameras on the stage, he documented festival-goers camping, swimming, selling merch, relaxing and having fun.
Hitch pointed out that David Shelburne’s footage is valuable in that it is continuous and tells a story.
At one rest stop, Shelburne stood next to a tree holding up a photo of a field full of campers.
She stood in the spot where her late husband had taken the photograph, looking out at the same fields, minus the campers, 55 years later.
She was clearly moved, saying “oh” several times, taking a deep breath and then shouting “Wow!”
She was hurt that her husband wasn’t in the photo, but she felt his presence that weekend.
Over the course of several days, the women roamed the festival grounds, from the stage area to the woods where vendors set up stalls.
Despite the changes – plush tents, fences and museums – the women said they found the same calm, friendly atmosphere they felt when they were 21.
And they were thrilled to be able to immerse themselves in that world again after so many decades.
“It’s so cool to see this go down in history forever,” Grant said, “and we’re a part of it.”
