The Singing Nun The Singing Nun Jeanne-Paule Marie "Jeannine" Deckers (17 October 1933 – 29 March 1985), better known as Sœur Sourire ("Sister Smile", often credited as The Singing Nun in English-speaking countries), was a Belgian singer-songwriter and initially a member of the Dominican Order in Belgium as Sister Luc-Gabrielle. She acquired world fame in 1963 with the release of the French-language song "Dominique", which topped the US Billboard Hot 100 and other charts. She was born Jeanne Paule Deckers in Laeken in 1933, the daughter of a pâtisserie shop owner, and was educated in a Catholic school in Brussels. She was a
The Singing Nun that "nobody knew who it was". She suffered a nervous breakdown followed by two years of psychotherapy. Deckers had a relationship with Annie Pécher (1944–1985), whom she had first met when she worked as a counsellor in a seaside camp in her youth. Annie, who was 11 years her junior, became warmly attached to her, a sentiment that Deckers did not reciprocate at the time. Nevertheless, Pécher visited Deckers regularly in her convent, went to live near where Deckers stayed when sent to study at Leuven, and even fell into a deep depression and attempted suicide when it seemed Deckers