Sixty-five years after the Morrow family packed up their nine children and established themselves in Tauranga, the siblings have reunited, bringing together their 21 children, more than 40 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
All nine siblings went through Tauranga College, later Tauranga Boys' and Girls' Colleges, and many locals will still see the Morrows around, ingrained in the Tauranga community.
Fourth eldest sibling and eldest daughter, Donnella Woodiwiss, 74, can be found playing the piano accordion at rest homes around the area, while third eldest Lawrence, 76, has just finished up 65 years playing bagpipes for the Tauranga Pipe Band.
His bagpipes made for a special end to their family reunion in Waihi over the weekend where he played Auld Lang Syne as the family gathered together.
Eldest sibling Clive, 79, was a builder by trade and can now be found volunteering at the TECT All Terrain Park, while second-eldest Ray, 78, holds a record in stockcar racing in Tauranga and remembers the day his workplace had to move to make way for the building of the Tauranga Harbour Bridge.
The younger five siblings, aged 62 to 71, had since left Tauranga but had only strayed as far as Auckland and Australia.
Mrs Woodiwiss fondly recalled her years living "packed to the rafters" in their two-storeyed Gate Pa home and said the siblings still held a strong family bond, more than six decades later.
It was the first time the siblings had got together in at least 15 years, Mrs Woodiwiss said, and her niece was determined to make the reunion happen while all nine were still alive.
Mrs Woodiwiss thought they were a bit like The Brady Bunch, recalling the antics of trying to share one bathroom and five bedrooms. Nowadays they kept in touch through emails and Skype and always called to check up on each other if they had not heard from someone in a while.
As a well established Tauranga family, they had seen Tauranga grow from a population of just over 14,000 in 1951 to the booming city of more than 114,000 now.
"I used to have to catch the ferry to the Mount because the road used to go out to Welcome Bay, out to Te Puke and back around to the beach," Mrs Woodiwiss remembered.
"Going out to Papamoa, it was all bush and shrubs," she laughed.
Their family home was still standing in Gate Pa but it was the connection to her siblings that kept her in Tauranga, Mrs Woodiwiss said.