Nicholas J. DeYoung

Page 461 - Nicholas J. DeYoung has been very resourceful and successful in his supervision of the business of the Toren Printing Company, which is one of the leading concerns in the general commercial printing business in the city of Grand Rapids, with a well equipped establishment at 29-31 Ottawa avenue, northwest. He is one of the principal stockholders as well as the general superintendent of this company. Mr. DeYoung was born in the picturesque province of Zeeland, the Netherlands, August 5, 1892, and is a son of Cornelius DeYoung, who came with his family to the United States and established residence in Grand Rapids in 1904, he being still a resident of this city, where the death of his wife occurred May 6, 1918. The subject of this review is the eldest in a family of five children, and he received his early education in the schools of his native land, he having been twelve years of age when the family home was established in Grand Rapids. In addition to continuing his studies in the Grand Rapids public schools during a period of one year, Mr. DeYoung was for several terms a student in night schools, after he had, at the age of thirteen years, entered upon his apprenticeship in the establishment of the Toren Printing Company. Eventually also he completed a course in Hope College, at Holland, Michigan, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1913. He became skilled as a workman at the printers’ trade, and after his graduation in Hope College he became, in 1914, foreman in the printing establishment in which he had served his apprenticeship. Later he was made superintendent of the plant, and in April, 1919, Mr. DeYoung effected the organization of a stock company to assume control of and carry on the business, which is still continued under the original title of Toren Printing Company and of which he is the executive head. In the World war period Mr. DeYoung served as a member of the Michigan state troops of reserve order. He is married and has three children: Eleanor, Gertrude Elizabeth, and Mabel Leona.