That was the case in August 1969 when the Woodstock Music & Art Fair in Bethel Woods, N.Y., brought half a million people of all ages, ethnicities, backgrounds and more together for a memorable weekend of music by many famous faces. This includes a Clinton County resident who recently shared her story with the Museum at Bethel Woods.

The museum is part of the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, which has been gathering the oral history of the famous festival since 2020.

Sue Morris, of Mill Hall, is the newest festival goer whose story will be featured in the museum… along with items she kept from her days at Bethel Woods.

On Sunday, Morris met with the museum’s curator, Dr. Neal Hitch, to share her memories of the festival and to donate the pants and glasses she wore during those days.

LAURA JAMESON/THE EXPRESS Sue Morris holds up the pants she wore during Woodstock, the historic music festival, which she donated to the Museum at Bethel Woods, which works to preserve and showcase the significance of the event.

Hitch set up an interview space in Morris’s Mill Hall home that afternoon, where he recorded her memories of Woodstock.

Morris later shared some of these memories with The Express while sitting in her kitchen. During the interview, Hitch worked to carefully package the items she donated to the museum.

Morris said she was 13 and lived in Queens, N.Y., when she purchased a physical ticket to the festival located about a two hours drive away in Bethel Woods.

“My mom told me I wasn’t going. But I said, I’m going. I have a ticket,” she said.

Morris noted the event, which saw 500,000 people attend, wasn’t exactly strict about whether or not attendees had tickets. But purchasing one ensured she was able to attend.

LAURA JAMESON/THE EXPRESS Mill Hall resident Sue Morris is interviewed by Dr. Neal Hitch, curator of the Museum at Bethel Woods, about her experience at Woodstock in August of 1969. Morris donated the pants she wore at the festival to the museum, and also provided her memories of the historic event.

She recalled her mom and 4-year-old brother dropping her off at the festival. She noted it was her brother’s birthday that weekend which was why he tagged along.

“He can even say he was at Woodstock,” she joked.

Morris said she can’t remember a lot about the festival — though she recalls the line up had great bands and it was rather muddy due to rain storms — but she can remember how connected it all was.

“I remember sitting on a blanket in a group of 500,000 people,” she said. “There were people as far as the eye could see.”

She noted, at the time, she and those gathered didn’t realize just how significant Woodstock would be in 1969.

LAURA JAMESON/THE EXPRESS Sue Morris donated the glasses she wore during Woodstock to the Museum at Bethel Woods along with the pants she wore, as well. Pictured here is Sue, the year after Woodstock, wearing the glasses outside of Madison Square Garden. She’s pictured with her friend, Robin, as they waited to catch a glimpse of James Dean and Carol King following a concert.

“I had no idea. I don’t think anybody could have had any idea. It was historic and the end of the line as life as we all know it,” she said.

Morris recalled, though a popular activity for many at festivals like Woodstock, she didn’t drink or do any drugs.

“I remember not wanting to do drugs because I didn’t want to forget anything,” she said. “My jaw was dropped the whole time I was there.”

Morris attended the festival for its Sunday, Aug. 17, and Monday, Aug. 18, shows which had bands playing well into the morning hours.

She saw Johnny Winter; Blood, Sweat & Tears; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Sha Na Na and Jimi Hendrix.

Though all the bands were memorable in their own right, Morris said she remembers Crosby, Stills & Nash the most.

According to Hitch, the band, which included Neil Young, did two sets during Woodstock — one with Young and another without.

Morris saw the band without Young, who skipped the acoustic set.

“They had the biggest impact on me,” Morris said of the trio’s set.

Morris’s interview will join over 1,500 others through a project the Bethel Woods Center of the Arts has been working on since 2020.

Hitch told The Express the museum began collecting these oral histories in 2020.

He said, as people came out of the pandemic, they were beginning to look back on their lives and legacies.

Since then, the museum has criss-crossed the country interviewing Woodstock attendees. Many of whom — much like Morris — shared items such as clothes, blankets, jewelry and more, to the museum to be put on display.

Hitch talked briefly about how he was able to connect with Morris.

“She came to the museum in June and told someone she had attended the festival. At the time we talked about her time there… we’ve been in contact since,” he said.

Not only were Morris’s pants and glasses donated, Hitch said, mud that was still on the pants was collected to be preserved.

Morris said she isn’t quite sure why she kept the pants, noting she was nomadic throughout her 20s and well into her life until she moved to the Lock Haven area.

However, she added she’s sentimental as well.

“It’s important that I have something. I was very sentimental about these items connected to my memories,” she said.

The same could be said for her glasses. Which she noted were styled like John Lennon’s.

“I was a big John Lennon fan back then… I still am,” she said.

Morris called meeting Hitch and connecting on this project as “serendipitous.”

She explained she was spending the weekend of the festival’s anniversary in Bethel Woods camping when she went to the museum.

“I just happened to go to the museum that day and Neal was there,” she said.

Hitch said these donations, and Morris’s story, are an important part of this on-going project.

“We are the stewards of the authentic memory,” he said. “This is an ongoing legacy project of people sharing their experiences.”

He noted these interviews can often bring out emotions that one might not expect.

“These interviews are way more emotional than people would think,” he said.

Morris said being a part of the project feels surreal.

“It gives me chills and brings a great big smile to my face to think this experience I had was such a seminal part of my entire life,” she said.

Morris noted she’s been to hundreds of music festivals during her lifetime, even spending summers at them with her daughters.

“I raised my girls at music festivals,” she said.

Hitch noted everything at Woodstock was meant to be temporary, but with this project it helps cement it in history.

“It’s amazing how many people kept a piece of that history with them all these years. People have left a story and want an artifact that holds that memory preserved,” he said.

The items Morris made will join a multitude of others at the Museum of Bethel Woods when it celebrates the 56th Anniversary of the festival.

To learn more about Bethel Woods Center for the Arts and the museum you can visit www.bethelwoodscenter.org.