Hundreds of mourners filled church pews Saturday to say goodbye to a church music director, an aspiring pastor and other family and friends who died when a tornado roared through their tiny town.
More than 700 Jarrell residents crammed into the sanctuary at the First Baptist Church of Georgetown to pay their respects to the Igo family, who died running to their home Tuesday to escape a brewing storm.The five were among 27 people killed when the twister literally swept away part of their bedroom community. Saturday's three funerals for 10 victims were held 14 miles south in Georgetown because Jarrell has no funeral homes.
The Rev. Jim Haskell had no words to explain the disaster.
"I don't know the answer, and I'm not sure if I did know the answer it would bring comfort," he said. "God did not do what you saw happen in Jarrell. God is not a God that would perform an act such as that."
Congregants at the Igo funeral were given red and pink carnations at the door of the church, where Larry Igo's parents are members. Many from Jarrell wore red or black ribbons in the victims' memory.
Igo was music director at Jarrell's First Baptist Church, where the whole family sang in the choir. His wife, Joan, was a special education teacher at Jarrell High School. Their daughter, Audrey, was a high school junior and their twin sons, John and Paul, would have been sophomores.
The Rev. Max Johnson, pastor of the Jarrell church, recalled how Igo would frankly criticize the congregation's singing.
"I don't know if the angels can sing flat, but if they do, he will let them know they are flat," he said.
Earlier in the day, more than 150 people gathered at Georgetown Church of the Nazarene to remember Vicki Kehl Taylor, a 36-year-old home health care worker, and her 16-year-old son, Johnathan Lyle Kehl.
"They died in terror, but they died together in each others arms," said the Rev. Joe Knight, reading from a poem written by one of Johnathan's cousins for the service.
A third funeral was held for 36-year-old Cindy Smith and her two children, Brandi, 13, and Stacy, 10.