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The couple had a cab service, too – also bare bones, with just one cab. In the beginning, Sam drove the cab and Phyllis drove the bus. Phyllis was also the bookkeeper.

Today, nearly 80 years later, the School District of Janesville still contracts with Van Galder Bus Company for “yellow bus” service to bring its rural students into the city for school. Janesville school kids who live in the city limits today get a free pass to ride JT -- Janesville Transportation – public buses to and from school.

In the years after its founding, as sons Stephen and David learned the ropes as youth and eventually took over the company, Van Galder Bus Company added motor coach tours and then became a regional household name when it started daily bus service between Madison, Wis, and O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, with stops at points in-between including Janesville.

Stephen Van Galder, who ultimately became the sole owner after many years of running the company with his brother, sold the entire Janesville-headquartered operation to Coach USA in 1999, while retaining the brand name. Coach USA later became part of an even bigger organization, when it was bought in 2024 by Renco Group, a New York holding company.

Van Galder Bus Company’s story in Janesville is about a family, led by its patriarch, Sam Van Galder, who didn’t shirk hard work. It’s also a textbook lesson in how to build something successful out of virtually nothing.

Sam Van Galder, whose legal name was Irving Samuel Van Galder, was born to a farm family in the Rock County town of LaPrairie in 1910. He was one of four children of Irving and Minne Van Galder, a family with deep generational roots in rural Rock County. Sam’s father, Irving, was also a town of LaPrairie native.

A World War II veteran, he was released from active duty in December 1945 and opened a cab service, Vets Cab, in Janesville in January 1946. Its first location was 201 N. Franklin St.

Sam and Phyllis had been married before the war, in 1940. She, too, was a Rock County native, also born and raised in LaPrairie township. Their son, David, was born in September 1945, followed by the birth of their son, Stephen, in June 1947.

In 1947, Sam and Phyllis expanded upon the cab service, adding the single school bus to their tiny fleet – and Van Galder Bus Company was born.

A decade later, Van Galder Bus Company was perfectly positioned to capitalize on the state of Wisconsin’s decision to close its rural schools and to bring rural kids into town for their elementary through high school education.

The state’s decree, that all town kids living more than two miles from school, and all rural kids, be offered free transportation, with school districts able to do this by contracting with local bus companies like Van Galder, drove its fast expansion.

In 1958, Sam sold Vets Cab to his cousin, Oscar Van Galder. Focusing exclusively, from then on, on the bus service, Sam and Phyllis moved the operation that year to 215 Water St. in Janesville, behind what to today is Citrus Café.

Though growing, it was still a hardscrabble operation.

"His office was an old trailer,” recalls Suzanne Van Galder, who married Sam and Phyllis’ son, Stephen, in Janesville in 1971. “In the winter when they didn't have a garage to do any mechanical work on any of the buses…no matter what the weather was, they had to slide under the buses outside in the freezing cold, in the snow.”

They worked in "whatever conditions they had to. Now, you wouldn't get anyone to work in those conditions," Suzanne Van Galder said.

Her father-in-law “was the epitome of hard work back in the day, when there wasn't air conditioning, there wasn't heat, there wasn't whatever,” Suzanne Van Galder said.

A 1961 article in the Janesville 69���� shows how fast the company grew.

By 1961, Van Galder Bus Company was transporting about 800 kids to and from Janesville school buildings each day and contracting with Janesville and other area school districts to drive student athletes and sports teams to competitions. Van Galder Bus Company also drove children to and from the Wisconsin School for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Janesville.

In 1961, it had 19 part-time drivers with a wide range of bus sizes in its fleet that could carry 48 to 72 passengers.

In these years, Sam Van Galder could still be found behind the wheel. He was on a first-name basis with students as "most of the youngsters call him" Sam, the 1961 69���� article noted.

The buses in those years that were chartered for high school sports teams had memorable names like the Blue Goose, the Blue Baron and the Red Rooster. It was a big deal to ride on the Blue Goose, Suzanne Van Galder said. "It was the first big motor coach," she said.

In 1964, a court case challenged whether Van Galder Bus Company could run its buses beyond the Wisconsin state line, without violating interstate commerce rules.

At issue were two trips its buses had taken across state lines, one taking the Whitewater College football team to DeKalb, Ill. for a football game, the other taking a University of Wisconsin agricultural extension service group to Canada on an exchange program.

The outcome – no charges were filed – illuminated the fact that, indeed, Van Galder Bus Company had a permit that allowed it to cross state lines, the "only service of its kind in Rock County.”

"He fought to be able to go across the state line," Suzanne Van Galder recalls.

In August 1967, Van Galder Bus Company moved to 715 S. Pearl St, in Janesville, where its regional hub still operates today. And a few years later, in 1982, U.S. bus transportation was deregulated, and it became a much more common practice for bus companies like Van Galder to cross state lines.

Allen Fugate, Van Galder Bus Company’s current vice president and general manager, recalls that Sam could be a little gruff, but was also honest and caring.

"You knew where you stood with Sam, for sure," Allen said. "If he liked you, you were in, and if he didn't like you, you knew it.”

“He was kind of gruff,” Suzanne Van Galder agrees. “It was his own way. He did everything and said everything in his own way, and if you didn't like it, get out."

“But he also, when I talked to people that knew him when he got the business going, they talk about his generosity and his heart and how he would do anything for anybody.”

Allen also recalls Sam as colorful.

"He probably couldn't say a sentence without stringing three or four swear words together," Allen said.

"But he would probably correct the boys if they used them," Suzanne said.

Sam was known for keeping order on the buses he drove.

"He said, 'If you can't behave on the bus, you're walking home,' and he would open the door and kick them out the door. Well, they didn't dare tell their parents," Suzanne said. "So, they walked home and kept their mouths shut. But those were the days when you could do things like that.”

“He was just adamant they behave on the buses."

In the 1961 69���� article, Sam Van Galder shared his view on bus discipline – including discipline for drivers, whom he insisted be well groomed, with good haircuts.

"Ninety percent of the trouble on a school bus is caused by a driver inadequate to run a bus,' Van Galder asserted. “If a driver shows the youngsters he is in charge from the beginning, they will respect him and behave.”

The article showed a softer side of Sam, as well.

He shared with the newspaper that a "million little things" happen on a school bus, including children forgetting their lunch. Drivers who took it upon themselves to lend children money to buy lunch, most often got reimbursed.

“The money is almost always paid back,” he said.

Sam Van Galder "liked what he did, and he was proud of what he did. He was the beginning of what made people want to keep hiring Van Galder Bus Company," Suzanne Van Galder said. "He got to know all the people in the school district that he needed to know, and he was friends with a lot of them."

"He was just giving a good service. He was mechanically inclined. He kept these old buses going and he was reliable," Allen said. "The school district liked him. They gave him more routes. Before he knew it, he was the biggest one in the area."

Allen called Stephen Van Galder, who took over as the company’s sole owner in 1985 as his brother, David, went a different direction, leading a company in Illinois, a "go-getter."

Stephen Van Galder started the daily routes between Wisconsin and O'Hare International Airport. Today, those routes to O’Hare remain "a big part of our business," Allen said.

Irving Samuel “Sam” Van Galder passed away in 1988. He’s buried in Turtleville Cemetery in rural Rock County.

David Van Galder died in 2009 at the age of 63. Stephen Van Galder died in 2014 at the age of 66. Phyllis Van Galder outlived them all, passing away in 2016 at the age of 97.

“Steve's father and mother started Van Galder Bus Co. with one cab and one school bus in 1947,” Stephen Van Galders’ obituary reads. “Steve and his older brother, David, worked there while growing up and eventually took over the ‘wheels on the bus.’”