Sister Pattie O’Pounder got her drag name off a wine bottle. At a wine tasting, she sampled “a really nice white blend that you could just pound back on the patio.” Sister Pattie, whose resume included exactly one amateur night, asked: “Is that my drag name now?” Apparently so, because the name stuck when Sister Pattie joined the Fourth City Sisters’ Abbey of the Glittering Arch. Similar serendipity leads many sisters to their drag names, like the Mistress of Disorder, Sister Thotimus Prime, or the Mistress of Novices, Sister Amanita Goodthyme.
Together, they form one of over 80 branches of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, an international order of drag nun activists. It might sound silly – this crew shows up in full white face paint and massive veiled cornettes. But when you wipe away the makeup, the Fourth City Sisters are just another 501(c)(3). They fundraise, educate, and provide programming. For Sister Pattie, this was initially just another nonprofit volunteering gig. She’s always volunteered, whether it was costume designing for theater or leading an Afghan refugee nonprofit.
Pattie O’Pounder. Photo credit: Zachary Steele
This gig, though, required her to find her look in a new way. When Sister Pattie started, she was padding her hips with Poise® incontinence pads. But trial, error, and lots of practice have helped her refine her rainbow-hued style. Sister Pattie also found that drag allowed her to exaggerate her personality’s existing strengths. Even though it can take her two hours to get into her full garb, being Sister Pattie allows her to support the community in ways she can’t do without the face paint.
Part of the Sisters’ job is strengthening queer spaces. They recently provided the keynote address at the St. Louis University Lavender Graduation. When they do “bar ministry,” they dress up and hit several bars in one night, just checking on familiar faces and making their presence known. They also show (very pale) face in places that are “not intentionally queer,” as Sister Pattie puts it. They host storytimes at the Alamo Drafthouse and cackle over dinner at Union Station, normalizing drag for flocks of surprised Blues fans.
Part of their job is answering questions for those who know less about queerness, like the time an older man walked surreptitiously past their Earth Day tent several times before finally asking clumsily how to support his daughter who just came out. Sister Pattie’s philosophy is very forgiving: “You can be the most cis, straight, uneducated person in the world. You’re gonna ask some embarrassing, offensive questions, but we choose not to be offended.”
The Sisters try to absorb some of the brunt of the discomfort – part of a larger effort to make St. Louis, a blue rhinestone in a red dress of a state, feel a little more queer-friendly.
Even out of drag, Sister Pattie is self-effacing, warm, and utterly Midwestern – like if your favorite friend’s mom was a 30-year-old gay white man. She is the abbess of this chapter (meaning the form-filer and money-cruncher), but every member of the Fourth City Sisters donates their time. They never recruit; volunteers must feel the natural pull to drag nunnery. Food bank volunteers wear latex gloves, hospital volunteers wear paper masks, and the Fourth City Sisters wear leather chokers and winged liner.
On this day, I wind through the crowd of tents and facepaint at Forest Park’s Earth Day. The Fourth City Sisters can be found if you just follow the rainbow brick road: a sign pointing to the social justice tents. A flurry of sisters, guards, and angels – their titles for various volunteer ranks and gender expressions – bustle around the tent. Their main mission is to connect with people and explain their work. There is usually one member tasked with grabbing visitors’ attention at the front of the booth – this is usually the sharp-tongued, gentle-eyed Sister Pattie O’Pounder. Today, she wears earth tones: a long bedazzled green veil, a pleated emerald skirt, and a blue blouse under a figure-defining corset. She looks positively secretarial – if your secretary had a bedazzled cornet and chest hair where you might expect cleavage. Another queen is tasked with talking logistics under the shade of the tent. The Sisters are a benevolent Venus flytrap: hook ‘em with Sister Pattie, then educate ‘em once they’re inside.
At 3:30, Sisters Pattie and Shonda Leer (try saying it out loud) strut through the crowd in their strappy heels. Their voices are like cowbells, clanging through the hubbub to announce that Drag Queen Story Hour will begin promptly under the shade of the community stage. Children gather on multicolored blankets while their caretakers settle into folding chairs behind them. At the front of the pavilion are several Fourth City Sisters: Pattie, Shonda Leer, and Nova Velour, a 16-year-old performer in training.
Before the first book is opened, Sister Pattie asks if she can “spiel for a minute” and tells the crowd about the Sisters’ work throughout St. Louis. This recently included drag brunches, Operation Meltdown at Rehab, and publicizing Trans Day of Visibility. She balances the demands of nonprofit president and drag queen with practiced grace. Story hour, she shares, is not just a time to read books: “we’re gonna have a part-ay!” As Nova begins reading, Sister
Pattie deftly switches between surveying the crowd to beckon more people in and embellishing the stories with droll humor. “Justice for Pluto!” she exclaims during a story about the solar system. The crowd cheers – she’s hooked ‘em.
But it’s not all fun and games. As Sister Pattie reads, she notes that “Sometimes humans forget to share and play nice and clean up after themselves,” which is why we’re all here at Earth Day.
We break for Nova Velour to do a short performance. As Nova twirls through the crowd, Sister Pattie and Sister Shonda stand to the side, bopping enough to support but not enough to co-opt any attention. I imagine Sister Pattie’s feet are tired after a day in her four-inch heels, but this does not stop her from hitting a clumsy Irish jig to Nova’s Lord of the Rings-esque folk song. Her seemingly boundless supply of energy will take her right back to deconstruct the tent when this is over.
A nonprofit drag nun abbess never sleeps.
