Patty met her husband, Leonardo, when they were actors in 1980, working for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Patti, who was raised Presbyterian, recalls that Leonardo was different from the other actors. He skipped the post-performance bar outings and went to Mass every morning. One day, Leonardo asked Patti to go with him. “I just had kind of an immediate conversion to Catholicism when I went to Mass there,” Patti said; she joined the church in 1981.