1997 – 2022
| June 2022 marked the 25th anniversary of the founding of Early Foundations Publishers (EFP). Our readers may find a brief history of EFP interesting, so we asked two of the original board members, Mr. Thomas Stryd and Mr. Marinus VanBrugge, to share their memories. We were also able to obtain some of the earliest minutes of the meetings, which helped to complete our summary of the early days of EFP. Early Foundations Publishers was formed to fulfil a desire of Marinus’ daughter Melanie, the late wife of Rev. A.T. Vergunst. For many years Melanie had a dream of writing children’s books, but she was unable to do so before her death in 1996. That desire of Melanie remained with Rev. Vergunst, and as the need for sound reading material for our youth was becoming more and more apparent, he organized a meeting with several members of the Kalamazoo Netherlands Reformed Congregation with the purpose to print and distribute books for our young people and families that promote biblical morals and provide good role models. That first meeting of the “Youth Books Publishing Committee” took place on September 25, 1996. In addition to Marinus and Tom, committee members present at the first meeting were Rev. Vergunst (President), Mr. Eric Schipper (Vice President), Mrs. Joan Blok, Mrs. Pauline Timmer, and Mrs. Alie Vogelaar. Marinus told us that the first meeting was “a feel in the dark. We didn’t know anything. The only one with book experience was Mrs. Vogelaar.” Marinus came to the meeting with a blank notebook for personal notetaking and was told, “Looks like we have our secretary!” That became his job for the next twelve years. Both Marinus and Tom indicated that the committee assigned tasks to each committee member based on the varied talents of each person. Tom, with his experience on the NRC Legal Advisory Committee and access to the tax services at his place of employment, The Upjohn Company, was very involved in the legal and financial aspects of setting up EFP as a non-profit corporation. With his careful attention to detail, his role as treasurer suited him perfectly for the twelve-and-a-half years he was on the EFP board. One of the first tasks of the committee was to decide on a name. According to the minutes, the committee narrowed the suggestions down to two: “True Value Books” and “Early Foundation Publishers.” The vote was 4 to 3 in favor of Early Foundation Publishers, but that was not the end of the story. Tom remembers, “Upon filing with the State of Michigan, we were informed we could not use the name ‘Foundation’ unless we were actually a foundation with a fund, such as the Kellogg Foundation or the Kalamazoo Foundation. Well, it was back to the drawing board. After much deliberation, no one had a better substitute for ‘Foundation.’ Then someone suggested that if we put an ‘s’ on the end of Foundation, would that be adequate? We tried it, and it was accepted. That is why there is an ‘s’ at the end of Foundations, and the ‘s’ is handwritten in on our filing with the State of Michigan as they already had our papers.” |
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| The first book published by Early Foundations Publishers was Flight from the Enemy, by Aileen Mol. Tom recalls that his brother, Jack, typeset this book using a special program on his computer. “This was Jack’s first undertaking like this, and after it was printed, I found a typo on the page facing the first chapter page that read ‘To ny husband…’ instead of ‘To my husband….’ I’ll always remember how bad he felt, and he probably would have paid to have the whole job reprinted, but it was too late as many books had already been sold. I think Jack got discouraged as he didn’t offer to do it again, but it was a tremendous help to us as we all learned a lot and he did it for nothing as we (EFP) had no money. It was help like that, that really got us started.” While Flight from the Enemy was written in English and printed in the United States, many of the early books were translated from Dutch—books written by Mrs. Vogelaar and others that Marinus remembered from his childhood. Marinus and his wife Jean did much of the translating. The typesetting was done by the original Dutch publisher in the Netherlands. After a book was typeset, Marinus would get a copy emailed to him to proofread. One particular problem that stands out in Marinus’ memory is that the Dutch publisher would divide a word anywhere when it didn’t fit on a line. When they ran out of room on the line, they would just insert a hyphen and finish the word on the next line. They didn’t understand the rules of dividing between syllables, so the result was sometimes very confusing. To resolve this issue, EFP had to tell the Dutch publishers not to divide words at all. If the word didn’t fit on a line, then they would just have to move the whole word to the next line. Once the books were printed, they would be shipped to the United States by boat. When the shipment reached the United States, it took another two to three weeks for the books to clear customs before a broker would have them delivered. Marinus said that one time a shipment was expected by Christmas, but it disappeared somewhere en route. There wasn’t much hope the books were going to make it in time, but the publisher managed to find the skid of books sitting in a Dutch warehouse and sent it by air (instead of boat) to a warehouse on the edge of Detroit, where Marinus picked it up. According to Tom, “We tried to find a printer that would work with us and for a while used a printer located in Chelsea, Michigan near Ann Arbor. But to bring the manuscript to them, obtain a copy for proof reading, and pick up the final product required many one and one-half hour (one way) trips, so we tried to find someone closer.” Eventually they were referred to Color House Graphics (CHG) in Grand Rapids, which turned out to be exactly who they needed. CHG continues to print our books to this day. There have been many changes over the years—original board members have moved on and been replaced by different ones, books are no longer printed in the Netherlands and shipped over by boat, and many aspects of the typesetting and printing process have become more efficient with modern technology—but the mission of EFP remains the same: To print and distribute books for our young people and families that promote biblical morals and provide good role models. There is still a need for sound reading material for our youth. We pray that the Lord may give Early Foundations Publishers wisdom in choosing sound books to publish, give time and strength to do the work, and above all use the books published to the extension of His Kingdom. |
25 Years of Publishing