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For most kids, when the bell rings, it’s second nature to bolt to the playground. Growing up, Sister Joanne Manns’ free time was a little more composed. Instead of heading outside, she used her half-hour to foster her passion for music, an equivalent to playtime because, to her, music has and always will be a favorite pastime.
"I wanted it to be something that remained enjoyable," she said of her life-long hobby.
And it has, although it shares the spotlight with several very different aspects of her life. Today, the 15-year resident at St. Nicholas of Tolentine Convent, 1718 S. Ninth St., is in the church’s choir and occasionally fills in on the organ at Sunday Mass. Manns said parish members are dedicated, with some having moved to New Jersey, but still making the trek in to raise their voices in collective song.
"I think [they come] because they really enjoy being part of that parish. They feel that dedication to St. Nicholas," the 57-year-old said. "It started as an ethnic parish; the diversity is what bonds the people."
During the week, she puts in 10-hour days at Temple University as an assistant scientist and instructor for the mycology section of the microbiology course offered to second-year medical students.
Sundays, she ventures over the bridge to Haddon Township, N.J., for weekly rehearsals with the Jubilate Deo Chorale and Orchestra, a 150-member choir and orchestra that is the only one in the region to combine faith, voice and instrument for performances of historical compositions. The group has traveled as far as Italy to perform and also has appeared at the Kimmel Center and Carnegie Hall. Their holiday concert, "The Splendor of Christmas," took place last weekend at the Commerce Bank Art Center in Sewell, N.J., where traditional carols like "Sleigh Ride" and "I’ll Be Home for Christmas" reverberated in the decked halls along with "O Holy Night" and "The First Noel." Manns tried out this year after hearing several concerts by the choir she described as "moving."
Manns is no Maria from "The Sound of Music" or Sister Ann in "The Singing Nun" though. Soft-spoken and humble, she said singing is just "another way for me to use my God-given talent," rather than a road to fame and fortune.
But her gift of music is what landed Manns and her twin sister Suzanne a piano scholarship to Villa Victoria Academy in Trenton, a school known at the time for its Spring Musicale. There, Manns sang second soprano in the choir, played piano and organ and taught herself the guitar, which she played for an accompaniment part in a musicale number.
"Even though we were fraternal twins, we did everything almost together," she said of Suzanne. "When she took art lessons in high school, I had to do it, too. We shared the same interests I guess."
Manns started singing at age 5, and said music was ingrained in her and Suzanne from their mother, who sang around the house while cooking. Manns was always a member of her school’s glee club, which practiced once a week during recess at St. Frances Cabrini Elementary School in Fairless Hills. The Lower Bucks County community was her home until age 9, when her family, including parents L. Robert and Rose, moved to Morrisville and she became a student at Holy Trinity Elementary. There, Manns recalled paying a 25-cent due to cover the costs of sheet music and to join other students in belting out Disney movie songs and Broadway hits with religious music interspersed.
Manns decided she wanted to take piano lessons in the fifth grade after hearing other students were doing so, but did not have the instrument at home. She and her sister made arrangements with the piano teacher to practice on the convent’s piano during recess on the days the glee club wasn’t rehearsing. Soon, both the teacher and Manns’ parents began to take notice of the girls’ serious musical interest.
"We never skipped giving up recess to practice," she said with a laugh.
On the girls’ 10th birthday, they were forbidden from entering the living room where, unbeknownst to them, an upright piano was being delivered.
"It was given to us with the stipulation that we were never to be told to practice," she said. "We were thrilled because we could practice at home rather than at school. We got all our recess back."
After graduating from Villa Victoria in 1967, where tunes in the musicales varied from opera to Cole Porter, Manns entered the Villa Walsh Convent in Morrisville because, she said, "it was just the natural thing to do." To her delight, the nuns were required to be in the choir and take piano, and Manns played the organ regularly at Mass. Manns also earned an associate’s degree at the junior college at Villa Walsh, helping her to go on to a bachelor’s in biology from Seton Hall University in ’76. While in school, she taught math, science and art to grades nine through 12 at the Villa Walsh Academy and grades seven through 12 at Villa Victoria, going back and forth for years until ’80. It was then Manns decided she wanted to further her education once again.
She returned to Seton Hall, living at a convent in Orange, N.J, while obtaining a master’s in biology. She graduated in ’82.
"I really loved it," she said of the subject. "I had aspirations of becoming a physician and music would just be my hobby."
She returned to teaching, where she instructed 10th- and 11th-grade biology, anatomy and physiology at Paul VI High School in Haddonfield. In ’90, Manns took her love of biology one step further and enrolled at Temple’s Medical School for her Ph.D. It took six years to finish the program and it wasn’t without a few obstacles.
"In the beginning, with the coursework, it was difficult only because I was the oldest one of the class," she said, adding she sometimes received puzzled looks when wearing her habit to school. "I had been away from intense studying for awhile. At that point, I was 40 and everybody else was 22 or 23. They would come later and say, ‘How come you’re doing this now?’ I was teaching high school and I wanted to go a little further and teach in college."
The other students would come to see Manns as a fixture in their lives, both in- and outside of the classroom. "They used to come to me for advice on anything," she said.
Manns stayed at Temple after graduation to complete her postdoctoral fellowship and has been there ever since. After doing extensive research on fungus for her dissertation and completing in-depth lab work with a prominent mycologist, the chair of the microbiology department asked Manns to teach the section on fungus to med students.
Since her teaching takes up only a few weeks in the fall, most of the time she is in the lab — "on the bench," as she describes it — doing experiments, like researching the protein in animals that causes Alzheimer’s. On these long days, Manns keeps the melodies close.
"I like classical music," she said of the CDs she plays on her computer at the lab to pass the workday. "And I have a series called ‘Suddenly ’70s."
Some co-workers know she likes to sing and have asked her to perform at functions like weddings, but for the most part, she keeps her audience small.
"I don’t sing along [at work] because I don’t want anyone to hear me," she said, admitting she will sometimes belt one out in the car, citing WOGL’s hits of the ’60s and ’70s as a favorite station.
Even though the majority of her day is spent away from St. Nicholas, Manns said it’s a nice place to come home to.
"For me, the best thing is that it’s close for me to come to work," she said, adding the neighborhood she’s lived in for 15 years is quite special. "Finding a parking place is the most unique thing to me! And the people — they’re very vivacious, some are very, very warm."
Although Manns did not become a physician, the path she’s chosen has been a good fit and she said she doesn’t intend for anything to change.
As for the roles of her life’s calling and her hobby, Manns said she is simply happy to keep things interesting.
"I enjoy what I’m doing at work. I enjoy being in the choir and singing," she said. "It brings me together with a very diverse group of people."
