The washhouse was a large copper parked beneath a tree, next to a pile of wood needed to heat the water. There the nappies from all eight Kuriger children were boiled to magic whiteness, before being strung on a wire line to dry.
When those same Kuriger children got together for a family reunion in February 2006, they remembered those details down on the farm, just as Con Kuriger does today.
They are all descendents of Johann Kuriger, born 1880 in Einsiedein, Switzerland, who followed many other Swiss settlers to Taranaki, in 1903.
Johann settled first in Inglewood, then Kapong/Kaponga area where he bought a farm on Upper Oeo Road.
In 1919, he travelled home, married his childhood sweetheart Rosalina Kalin, born in the same town in 1895, and brought her back with him the following year.
The old Kina Road Dairy Factory, in the days of the horse and cart: Image Puke Ariki Collection N.1.108 LN 945.
Built on milk
The Ōaonui district covers 15,656 acres, or 6,338 hectares. The original community, built first on the flax and then the fungus industries, would one day survive on milk.
Though it was once a thriving township halfway between Rahotū and Opunake, today it is near deserted. Ōaonui is now recognised by the bright flare where the Māui gas comes ashore.
But, back in the early 1920s, Ōaonui was a place that served its population well. It was home to many community-minded settler families, whose mainstay was dairying.
It was the dairy industry that saw factories spring up all over the district. At one time 120 separate factories were scattered around the land beneath Mt Taranaki.
Ōaonui farmers could choose between the Kina Road Factory, owned and operated by the Opunake Dairy Company who also collected and carted milk to Opunake, the Ōaonui Dairy Factory or the Arawhata Road Factory as markets for their milk.
Fire was an ever-present danger, and farmers in the district saw their fair share. In 1916, the Ōaonui Factory was completely ruined by flames, followed by Kina Road Factory in 1928, and the Arawhata Road Factory in 1935. Like most factories that suffered the same fate, these were all rebuilt in concrete.
Due to a shortage of farm labour during World War II, many farmers reverted to dry stock, forcing the Kina Road factory – the first Taranaki factory to produce cheese in square blocks - to close down, though it reopened in later years.
Eventually, by the 1950s there were only 50 factories left in Taranaki. Then the number dropped to three – Egmont in Opunake, Moa Nui at Inglewood, and Kiwi at Hāwera. Today, the giant Fonterra Factory at Hāwera holds the New Zealand monopoly.
The Opunake Dairy Factory, built in 1885, and where milk was often carted from the Oaonui district: Image Puke Ariki Collection N.1.230 LN1748.
A long-held dream
Con Kuriger was always going to be a farmer. He took hold of the dream the first day he worked beside his father on the family land, a few kilometres north of Ōaonui, near the Moutoti River. His first foray into paid farming began before he'd even finished school.
In 1936, a huge flood took out many country bridges in the area. It also buried the water race - that served the big water wheel that drove the turbine for the Ōaonui dairy factory - under several tonnes of mud. The local farmers banded together to dig it out.
That same year, Con Kuriger left home at the age of 13, to work for Mr Colmer of Rahotū.
Twice a day he hand-milked the cows and helped with assorted farming tasks, earning 7/6d a week and free board.
Con remembers well. "I saved my money up and eventually had enough for a second-hand pushbike. I used to bike home every Sunday to see Mum and Dad. About six kilometres, I guess."
Towards the end of the year, he was offered more money at Jimmy Duggan's place at Pungarehu, a couple of kilometres from the Pungarehu Post Office.
"And from there I used to bike home too, about twelve kilometres."
A few more jobs followed until, in 1938, his father took a lease farm at Kina Road and all the Kuriger boys went home to Ōaonui to help develop it.
"It wasn't paid and we all lived at home, and there were eight kids in the house!" Con smiles. He has no regrets.
The original Arawhata Road Factory burned to the ground in 1935, but was rebuilt in concrete in 1937: Image Puke Ariki Collection N.1.269 GNF 8855.
A new house
The family built a new house the following year, with electricity and a telephone that hung on the wall. "I remember the day we moved in," Con says with delight. "I was the first to light the fire in the new stove."
The Kurigers now ran two farms. Con and his brother John would bike from home to the lease land on Kina Road, hand milk 20 cows and then bike home for a feed. They did this twice a day, until the family bought an old Morris truck, which saved them a great deal of pedalling.
In 1941, with one cowshed on the original farm and a new one built on Kina Road, the herd could be moved from farm to farm and milked on either property. But when the war began, Con's life changed.
He was called up towards the end of the war. "I was 22 and it was the first time I'd been out of Taranaki," he says.
"I went to Trentham army camp on an old steam train going through all the tunnels." He laughs quietly, "But when the Japs heard I was coming, they chucked the sponge in."
Factory hands: Inside the rebuilt Arawhata Road Dairy Factory. Image Puke Ariki Collection P.2.989 GNF1456.
Further back
Con enjoyed the farming life, even during his early days of balancing school and work. The Kuriger siblings were quick to cadge a lift on the long walk to and from Ōaonui School, which was situated halfway between the house and factory. They'd jump on the back of any passing wagon and hitch a ride.
"We used to hang on the back," Con says, "or stand up between the milk cans. We'd do the same coming home, if we could. But it was only occasionally. We didn't always see a cart."
At school there was regular punishment for minor misdemeanors. "We got the strap if we didn't know our sums, if we talked in class, if we got there late."
Yet Con found schoolwork easy, particularly maths. It was only English that gave him grief because at home they all spoke Swiss.
"When I started school, I couldn't speak much English. Reading was okay, and writing okay, but it was English that was the trouble."
Despite the punishing lifestyle, Con recounts his school days without rancour.
"We lined up outside the classrooms and sang God Save the King before marching into school," he says. "We had about 70 pupils."
He remembers the names of every teacher who taught him over the year, and Leatherbarrow, the bee-keeper who kept a hive in the playground.
"He gave us bee-keeping lessons," Con says. "And we could taste the honey and everything like that." In 1939, six pupils at Ōaonui School were awarded Certificates of Merit in Bee-Keeping by the Education Department, a very rare achievement.
And though Con came third in the class with his proficiency exam, he always knew where his future lay. "I always dreamt of being a farmer," he says.
The Butler Autosweep, designed and made by Lou Butler, father of Theresa Kuriger (nee Butler): Image Puke Ariki Collection.
New inhabitants
The Ōaonui Hall was the beating heart of Ōaonui from earliest times. As in most small communities, almost every social event that happened in town, happened there.
There were card and Housie nights, and weddings and dairy company meetings. And of course there were the country dances, held most Saturday nights.
As a young man, Con went to most of them but it was a dance in Inglewood in 1953, which would dictate the rest of his life. There he met the woman he would marry in less than a year.
Theresa Butler, he reckons, took a real shine to him. "She made such a fuss of me. She grabbed hold of me and said "You're the guy." Coming from a farming background and also of Swiss descent, the couple made a perfect match.
The Butlers were well known in Taranaki. Theresa's father Lou was something of an inventor and amongst other things created a sheep sling, an articulated trailer, a turf cutter, a trench digger, a butter box press and his most famous of all – the auto hay sweep and the boxthorn hedge cutter.
Con Kuriger, in a room full of family portraits: Image Puke Ariki Collection TS2007_1193.
A good move
After their marriage the newlyweds bought a farm next to the Ōaonui Dairy Factory. Con grins. "I wanted a farm close to the factory, and it was only 200 yards (0.182 km) to take my milk. And when I wanted a bit of curd, I just went inside to the vats."
Like many farmers in the region, he doesn't approve of today's Fonterra monopoly. Though he sold his farm to his son Lewis in 1988, and stayed on the land until 2004 when he moved into New Plymouth, he still holds opinions on all things dairying.
"When they got down to three companies, they should have left it at that," he says.
He's entitled to his point of view. As a first generation New Zealander and second generation farmer, he's been farming all his years.
At 84, a widower now, he looks back on what he considers to be a long, productive life, with not too many complaints and woes. He says with a nostalgic sigh that it was great at Ōaonui.
As a Swiss cuckoo clock chimes on a wall, and he brings in the old kettle his mother used to boil up for the swaggers during the Depression years, it's temping to ask the question. If he had a magic wand, would he turn back the clock?
"Not for me," he says, because he's pretty pleased with the cards God dealt him. "But yes, for the young fellows," he adds.