considered himself a mediocre student because of his other wide-ranging interests, such as attending fraternity parties, skating, and canoeing, usually with his future wife who was in the same year class at Smith College. Draper had wanted to be a medical doctor since he was a youngster, and upon graduating from Amherst in 1906, he began his studies at Harvard Medical School. During his first two years of medical school Draper lived at home, but for his final two years he and a roommate rented a place near the school and hospital. Shortly before his graduation he was married in Detroit, Michigan on April 6, 1910, to Margaret Gansevoort Maxon (October 29, 1883 – April 28, 1967), the daughter of William D. and Anna (Lush) Maxon of Detroit, but originally from Waterford, New York. Margaret had attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in classics. A month after his marriage, Draper earned his MD degree, then went to Washington D.C. to take the United States Public Health Service entrance exam. In June, he and Margaret went to a summer cottage in Morrisville, Vermont awaiting the exam results and news of his first assignment. Years in the Public Health Service West Coast duty Draper finished second on the Public Health Service exam, out of about 25 examinees, and in August 1910 reported to his first assignment at the quarantine station on Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay. Having seldom been far from their homes, Draper and his wife traveled the scenic route to the West Coast by taking the Canadian Pacific Railway over the Rocky Mountains to Vancouver, followed by a boat trip to Seattle, and then another train to San Francisco. Work at the quarantine station involved meeting and boarding ships arriving from Asia, and inspecting all of the passengers for plague, yellow fever, small pox, typhus, and leprocy. If any individuals were suspected of having any of these diseases, they were taken to the station for quarantine. If an active case of small pox was found, then the entire passenger and crew population of the ship was put into quarantine. In April 1911 Draper received orders for a tour as Ship's Surgeon on the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service cutter Bear, which assignment would last until Thanksgiving. Still being a newlywed, Draper was distraught over the pending separation from his wife and began questioning