x
Breaking News
More () »

How the song 'Respect' may have made a nun blush

One Rockville, Md. woman has fond memories of Aretha Franklin. She shared those laughs and smiles with WUSA9.

Rockville, MD — ROCKVILLE, MD -- Respect. So many people can now spell it thanks to Aretha Franklin, who took the world by storm with her version of the song.

As fans all across the world now remember the Queen of Soul, one local woman said it takes her back to high school and the time she and friends scared a nun.

From an Irish-Catholic family, Martha Manning said she went to high school at Holy Cross.

“One of the things we did at our Catholic school was that we had record day as the church was becoming more relevant, and so people brought in songs by Peter, Paul and Mary and Pete Seeger,” said Manning.

RELATED: 'Queen of Soul' Aretha Franklin has died at 76

She said she and a friend decided to play one of their favorites, “R-E-S-P-E-C-T!”

Laughing, Manning said, “Sister (Adelaide) looked like she was going to fall over! And we just started singing and the drum beat was sort of, louder and louder. Until we got to, ‘Sock-it-to-me, Sock-it-to-me …’ and we’re all singing and I swear, our dear nun looked like she was going to have to be carried out.”

Still in Rockville, Manning said they very seriously told the Sister, the song was about respecting their bodies and their virtue.

“We convinced the nun, although not entirely because record day was suspended after that,” Manning said, still laughing.

Fourteen is when Manning, now in her 60s, said she fell in love with the Queen of Soul. On Thursday, her daughter tweeted, “…today mom is mourning like she lost family.”

“She enters you,” said Manning, “and just makes you laugh and makes you cry and makes you feel sexy and wanted or heart-broken – heartbreak…she was just wonderful. It wasn’t just talent, it was life.”

Manning said Aretha was there at every big moment. She sang Aretha Franklin to her newborn daughter, they played one of Franklin’s songs at a family funeral. This was the impact the Queen of Soul had on a woman who didn’t even know Aretha Franklin personally.

Before You Leave, Check This Out