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Funerals Begin for Mall Shooting Victims

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[December 10, 2007]  OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- Loved ones remembered Janet Jorgensen on the eve of her funeral as someone who helped her husband fight cancer and found time to bake birthday cakes for relatives and go fishing with her grandchildren.

Friends and family members gathered Sunday at a funeral home about four miles from the Von Maur department store, where Jorgensen and fellow employee Dianne Trent died after a gunman opened fire at Westroads Mall.

Visitations also were held for their co-worker Gary Joy and shopper John McDonald, among the eight killed last week by teenage gunman Robert Hawkins.

Funerals for the four, as well as for shopper Gary Scharf, were set for Monday.

Jorgensen was remembered Sunday as dedicated to her grandchildren and neighborhood. The 67-year-old Omaha woman was planning the wedding for one of her granddaughters and had recently helped ease her husband of 50 years through his bout with prostate cancer.

"Her personality was wonderful," niece Karen Schaefer said.

Cars overflowed from the parking lot of the funeral home, which held a simultaneous visitation for Trent, a 53-year-old store employee who tended flowers on her porch and chatted with her neighbor over tea.

Divorced many years ago and with no children, Trent lived in a northwest Omaha town house with a small dog and two cats, neighbor Errol Schlenker said.

"A very incredibly sweet person," Schlenker said last week. "She was a middle-of-the-road American, a dedicated worker. She was just a decent person who lived a good life here."

A few miles north, a steady stream of friends, co-workers and relatives paid their respects to Joy, who was remembered as a quiet and shy gentleman.

Members of the von Maur family and the ambulance crew that tried to revive Joy also attended. The 56-year-old was the first victim taken from the mall Wednesday.

"It's just such a tragedy," said Nancy Worm, a friend of Joy's mother.

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A funeral also was to be held Monday for Gary Scharf, who was on his way home to Lincoln after a business trip in Iowa when he stopped at the Von Maur store.

Scharf, 48, sold agricultural products and was devoted to helping people, said his ex-wife, Kim Scharf. Recently he helped a single mom get her car started, then got her address and delivered a package of groceries and blankets to her doorstep, she said.

"I called him my Dudley Do-Right," Kim Scharf said last week. "I'm not kidding. You'd never meet a more honorable and loyal man."

About 250 parishioners filled pews in St. John's Parish at Creighton University Sunday morning, where McDonald's funeral was to be held Monday. Candles labeled with the victims' names burned on two altars at the front of the sanctuary, near the hospital where victims were taken.

McDonald, 65, was shot as he tried to hide behind a chair on Von Maur's third floor with his wife.

"What happened at the Westroads Mall last Wednesday happened to each and every one of us," the Rev. Bert Thelen said in his sermon.

Some people grieved at the mall, which reopened Saturday. The Von Maur store itself did not open. Instead, a memorial of handmade paper snowflakes sprouted on security gates of the store's inner entrances, taped on by shoppers, mall employees and children.

[Associated Press; By OSKAR GARCIA]

Associated Press writers Josh Funk and Jason Bronis contributed to this report.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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