Chapter Two : Survival in Penticton

Monique and her sisters had a very difficult time growing up in Penticton, B.C. According to their neighbors, Ted and Tammy, the girls were often in need. Tammy tells of how the famished girls would eat and sleep at her house when they were locked out of their own house for being a couple of minutes late.

Ted and Tammy volunteered as block parents and met with other block parents on occasion to share notes. They were appalled at how the girls were treated. They spoke of the hunger pains the girls complained of as well as clothing issues. Tammy felt that the girls needed professional help in dealing with events that transpired in Julie's home. The alchoholism affected Julie's ability to provide a safe home for them. Her fights with Gunther terrified the girls. The girls often huddled together crying as the adults had full-on brawls. Several times the girls landed in foster care as the police became increasingly involved.

Julie's punishments for the girls were pretty extreme also, After Jackie reported to Julie that she had been raped by the youth pastor of a church they attended, Jackie was promptly stripped naked and beaten with a 2 X 4. vJulie told Jackie that it must have been her own fault. Several times some of the girls were locked in the attic overnight without enough clothing or blankets for the intensely cold winters in Penticton. But most common was just being locked out of the house at night, forcing the child to ask a neighbor for help.

Years later Mel Dressler witnessed a weeping Monique, begging her grandmother to tell her why she let Julie take her when she knew Julie "was bad". Iowlyn responded with "she was your mother child" . When Monique tried to tell her of some of the abuses she was told not to talk about "those things". When Bridgette (Monique's older sister) was asked about this period she jumped out of the van and ran across the street. There she fell to her knees and sobbed for about five minuets. When she returned to the van she exclaimed, " whoa, I havn't been there in a while". All this time her children where in the back of the van worried about their mother. Bridgette added that "Julie was crazy, we moved out as soon as we could". Rachel had the traumatic experience of coming home from school one day only to find the house empty. Her mother had left and put the furniture in storage so she could pursue a man from England to get his money. Rachel had to live with a foster family for about six months or so. When her mother returned, Rachel got even by stealing seven thousand dollars from Julie's account with her ATM card.

Monique brought Mel Dressler (her husband at the time) to see her mother about four times. The first time they were invited for dinner, Monique marched into the kitchen, found all the food burnt on the stove, and attacked her mother. The battle was not pretty! The last time Monique took Mel to see her mother was after she was diagnosed with cancer. The meeting was more civil as Monique was trying to obtain information about her true father. Julie still would not admitt to Monique that Michael Parks was her father. But she did speak about him to her. " He was the "best dressed man in Montego Bay" was one of the comments, and " he owned a gold mine somewhere" was another while she turned a gold braclet on her wrist that she got from him.

This bracelet was really the only thing that Julie had that Monique wanted from her after her death, because it came from her father.

Chapter Three Mel and Monique

Mel and Monique met at "Richards" (a nightclub) one night when Monique accompanied her sister Raquel there. Mel spent several hours speaking with Monique which led to their paths crossing almost daily thereafter. Mel told Monique about his desire to work with the elderly and she expressed a similar dream. Monique came from a legacy of working women and expressed that she wished to pursue her career as a nurse. Mel was recovering from a serious car accident and agreed to be a "house-husband". Monique felt very comfortable with this concept as her fondest memories as a child were from the time she lived with her grandparents and her papi (grandfather) who had cateracts, stayed home with the children while Mama (grandmother) worked. Monique was working as an admitting clerk at Vancouver General Hospital. She had worked her way up from the bottom so to speak by keeping a carefull eye on the job postings and the requirments for them. Monique was paid very well as the hospital jobs were union jobs. The emergency admitting department was notoriously difficult to keep staffed. It had the highest number of sick day absenteeism in the hospital. This presented Monique with ample opportunities to work double shifts. Many of these double shifts fell on holiday's which allowed her to earn over a thousand dollars in some weekends. Monique felt good about her high earning power.

Although Mel and Monique were speaking and seeing each other almost daily, Monique said little about her previous boyfriend Ralph, an engineer. Later Mel understood, that Ralph had wished Monique was more domesticated like his own mother. Her ambition and drive made the alliance with Mel more appealing to her than her than relationship with Ralph, as she was now given the freedom to find out how far she could go with these qualities. So after spending almost everyday together for three months, Mel and Monique were married in Surrey, in a civil ceremony October 26th 1991. A church ceremony was to follow in Miami at her grandmother's church. Mel and Monique planned their path towards owning and operating their own senior's care facility. Monique attended nursing school and Mel invested in a a piece of propery. Monique wording double shifts on weekends and attended school during the week. Mel and Monique now owned a new mega-home in Surrey,B.C. across the bridge from the college she attended. The ground floor contained two separate suites that generated enough income to cover the mortgage. Mercedes was born while they were living in this new house, Mel was taking care of the baby while Monique attended college and worked weekends. This situation lasted for about a year as Mel's parents were returning from Europe and needed them to sell the house in Surrey to free up money they needed to purchase a home again for themselves. While in Europe, Mel's parents had lent them additional monies to purchase property in Sooke on Vancouver Island which was to be the future site of the care facility. The double beach-front lot in Sooke had a small house and cottage that rented for a fourteen hundred dollars per month. This was about six hundred short of the complete mortgage payment. When they moved out of the Surrey house, Mel's parents bought a waterfront lot in Sooke also, although a very large lot, the house was a run down shack that required the walls and floors and roof to be redone before they could move in. Marius (Mel's younger brother) lived there with some friends until the house was made suitable for Dr. Harold Dressler and his wife Ruth about two years later. A plan like this carried with it lots of responsibilities and Mel and Monique continued to work hard toward their goal of owning and operating their own business. There were of course many bumps and potholes along the way. Monique had a male nursing student friend, Anthony who became much more than her study partner. Mel was later verbally abused by Anthony's mother who demanded to know what kind of a man lets his wife sleep over at another man's apartment. Anthony was yelling at his mother that Mel didn't know about that during the verbal assault. At this point there were two children, Mercedes and Menalek that Mel was taking care of in a one bedroom apartment in New Westminster B.C which was only blocks away from the college Monique attended. This was a difficult time for Mel as he realised that there was something wrong with Monique but he didn't know what it was. When Monique graduated, Mel moved to Vancouver Island with the kids and waited for Monique to finish her practicum in Vancouver. Monique was pregnant with Madeleine during her Practicum and when she finished she came to Victoria to give birth to Madeleine and took he first maternity leave in Sooke. She quickly became bored with staying home with the kids and applied to the University of Victoria and took some correspondance courses. The money was tight during this period and Monique spent about six hundred dollars every two months on her hair extentions. She had discovered micro braids and now sported long braided blond hair that kept people guessing her origins. With the construction project behind schedule and Mel's parents living on the property, Monique became more and more unhappy with her life as her thirtieth birthday loomed. Sure enough, Monique exploded shortly after her birthday as predicted by Tammy in Penticton. Monique moved in with a boyfriend from work and left the kids.

Chapter Four: Back and Fourth

At first, Mel was glad that Monique left, it was quite a relief. Mel felt like he was coming down from a very bad trip of spousal abuse, including the ufo's that Monique hurled at Mel in anger. Unfortunately, Mercedes, then six received one such delivery as she stepped in front of her father. The plate opened up a two inch section on her forehead. Mel feared that if they took Mercedes to the hospital it would result in the children being taken into protective custody by social services. So instead he took 3M suture tape and held the skin together for the next twelve hours. This really minimised the scar but people still wanted to know how it happened. Somehow the truth just didn't seem like a good idea at this point, and Mercedes was taught to lie about her wound. This is of course something that Mel bitterly regrets to this day. Teaching a child to lie should never come up. Mercedes obediently told everyone that the scare was the result of her falling and bumping her head.

Now that Monique had gone, Mel had only the children to worry about and somehow that felt managable to him. After wo months, Monique showed up with a girlfriend to collect the children. In trying to dislodge Madeleine from her father, Monique was pulling Madeleine's little arm so hard that he was forced to let her go to prevent injury. Monique took the children to her new home in Victoria where she lived with her new boyfriend Jason.