The Singing Suicidal Lesbian Nun - Dominique

Jeanine Deckers aka The Singing Nun

October 17, 1933 - March 29, 1985

"We have reached the end."

The joyous song Dominique which was huge in the 60's was used recently in American Horror Story as the song to calm the nervous.

Jeanine Deckers aka Soeur Sourire (Sister Smile) had a hit single in 1964 with Dominique - The only song out of Belgium to hit #1 on the American Charts.

She beat the Beatles.

Debbie Reynolds portrayed Jeanine in the movie The Singing Nun.  I am obsessed with bad wax - this statue of Debbie was so old her face looked like it had tit implants.

Speaking of tits, Jeanine was a mammber of the Dominican Order.

She took a vow of chastitty.

Most of the residuals from her music went to the record company, her own share  was, ummm, snatched up by her convent.

Debbie Reynolds made the snappy movie The Singing Nun based on Jeanine's story.  

Two theories of how Jeanine, not Debbie, or maybe Debbie, but Jeanine met her lover:

While at a summer camp, a much younger female attendee, Annie Pecher, fell in love with Deckers.  I cannot tell you how many times the "summer camp lez" story has come up in my life.  It sounds like Annie was obsessed with the ex-nun.  

or

Jeanine took classes at University, began smoking and wearing makeup and Annie was a fellow novice nun.

This on top of the Debbie Reynolds movie sent her convent into fits.

They turned.  

This doesn't surprise me at all.  I've had experience with monster lezzer nuns. 

 The bad ones can be VILE BULLIES.  The nuns made it clear they didn't approve. 

Girl had a nervous breakdown.

Girl left the order in 1966 yet maintained a religious lifestyle.

Eventually Annie moved in with her and Jeanine insisted it be only as "friends".  

It took fourteen years for Jeanine to give up the "friend" thing and sip from the furry cup and join the Order of the Practical Shoes. They had an altar built in their house and took communion.

Girl turned rebel in 1967 when she wrote a pro-birth control song

Glory be to God for the Golden Pill.

You go.

She made her last album in 1979.

Get this:  The Belgian government wanted back taxes for the royalties.  The royalties were eaten out by the convent.  Jeanine tried to get out of it by explaining that situation, but they were not having it.

Towards the end, the two ladies were operating a school for autistic children.  It failed and closed.  Jeanine was trying to make a go at giving music and religion lessons.

They lived in the Green Horizons Apartment Bldg (#47B) in Wavre, Belgium.

On Friday night March 29, 1985, Jeanine and Annie took a massive overdose of barbiturates and washed it down with booze, apparently because of money.

They were discovered three days later by concerned friends.

In the suicide note was the statement:

''We hope God will welcome us. He saw us suffer, so He should show clemency.'' 

Upon hearing the news of the deaths, The Mother Superior from Jeanine's order, clearly devastated, gave the girls a tongue lashing.

"The lady is no longer a member of our order."

The ladies left behind instructions for how to distribute their belongings.

In their suicide note insisted they did not give up their Catholic faith and asked to be buried with a Catholic funeral.  They also requested to be buried together.

Our own tributes in the Dearly Departed Museum

In 2009 a documentary about Jeanine was released.  

"Cécile de France, the Belgian actor who plays Deckers and fought to get the film made, described her as a rebel trouble-maker and a "punk before her time" but also a fragile egotist full of "repressed aggression and savage brutality".

Sources:  The Express Wiki

Author D. A. Chadwick's website who wrote The Singing Nun Story: the Life and Death of Soeur Sourire 

Jesus is magic.

Thanks Robbert Jansen for the funeral and belongings photographs.