Memories of Andrew Page Draper
by Brent W Draper, his father.

Andrew was born on the morning of July 26, 1985 in Bountiful, Utah.  His was a difficult 
birth for his mother.  He was born with a birth defect known as 
spina-bifida.  For him it meant that from the middle of his abdomen down
 he could feel nothing and move nothing.  Thus he could not push or help
 in his own birth as most children do.

His back was open at the time of his birth.  He was quickly flown from 
the hospital in Bountiful to Primary children's Hospital in Salt Lake 
City.  A couple of hours later he had the first of what would end up 
being 13 surgeries.

A couple of months after his birth, the family moved from Centerville, 
Utah to Roosevelt, Utah.  What seemed like a very hard thing was a 
blessing.  In Roosevelt, the family had better health insurance, and the
 school district also had an aggressive special education program, so 
Andrew was off to school at 9 months of age.  He attended Con Amore 
school.  There the loving teachers worked with him giving therapy and 
strengthening his weak body.

When Andrew was 5 years old he went to school with the rest of the 
children his age.  He went to East Elementary in Roosevelt, Utah.  By then he had a fancy 
power wheel chair.  He always had a friend to be with him in school.  It
 was like he had a neat car.  The kids could stand on the back of the 
chair and ride along with him.

No one thought of him as different, it was just the way he was and had 
always been.  The teachers adapted things like the school play for him 
and the rest of the class.  One time they did a western play and had his dad  
 decorated his wheel chair as a covered wagon.

For Andrew, school was school and home was home.  The two did not mix.  
He refused to do home work at home.  It really did not matter though.  He never 
missed a single spelling word and could do long division in his head.  
He had an aid during school to help him.  He had very light hand writing
 because he was not very strong.  She would help him do his writing and other tasks.

One evening in 1994, while he was at home, he crawled the wrong 
direction.  His bones were very week because he had no muscle strength.  He 
snapped his femur.  He was taken to Primary Children's again.  There 
they fixed his leg.  

Four weeks later, during the night he slipped away in his sleep.  He 
died on the 24th of July, Two days before his 9th birthday.  He was 
buried in Roosevelt two days after his birthday.