CLEVELAND, W.Va. — Jerry Groves tried to get out of the coal mines. He applied for a job with a road crew. He learned to drive a truck and got a commercial license.

“But the Lord wouldn’t let him out,” said his friend, Alfred Clay. Unable to find work elsewhere, Groves stayed on the job in the mine.

That’s where he was when the explosion erupted in the Sago Mine, trapping Groves and 12 of his colleagues deep underground. Clay believes that’s just where God wanted his white bearded friend, ready to help save the souls of his fellow miners as they waited for a rescue that would arrive too late.

“I hope and pray he was witnessing to that group,” Clay said.

Groves’ funeral was the last of six held Sunday for the men who died in the Sago Mine. There are more funerals to come, including three scheduled for today. And after the heartbreak that played out on live television last week as the families first thought the miners were alive, then learned all but one was dead, the funerals were mostly private affairs.

Groves’ family allowed The Associated Press into his memorial service, where friends and relatives told stories about the 56-year-old who spent half his life working in the coal mines. Though the tears flowed, the tiny church also echoed with laughter.

“We want to hear laughter because that’s the kind of man he was,” said Mike Rose, Groves’ son-in-law.

Groves’ wife of 29 years, Debbie, told the crowd her husband was the love of her life since she was in the fourth grade. They were both “ornery kids,” she said. She never thought when he kissed her goodbye last Monday morning that he wouldn’t come home.

“I know I’ll see him again,” she said. “Eternity is forever. Our time here is just a vapor.”

At a funeral home in Philippi, the pain of loss was clear as nearly 100 mourners hugged one another, many staring at their feet as they walked inside to remember Jackie Weaver, a 52-year-old electrician who had spent 26 years working in the mines.

Weaver always wrote “Jesus saves” in the coal dust of his mine car as he and colleagues descended into the mine, said his cousin, Scotty Felton, 42, of Philippi.

“He was a wonderful man with a wonderful sense of humor,” said Melanie Hayhurst, 44, a friend from Fairmont who said she and her family had known Weaver for about 15 years.

Weaver’s family planned to bury him next to his son, who died as a child about 20 years ago in a motorcycle accident, Hayhurst said. “He was a Christian,” she said of Weaver, “so I am not worried.”

There were so many funerals it was occasionally difficult for the funeral home employees to remember the times and locations without checking.

Wright Funeral Home worker Pete Sandridge’s eyes filled with tears when he was asked if he knew any of the miners personally. All he could manage was to hold up four fingers, then he walked away.

First, Martin Toler Jr. was remembered at a service in Tesla. Then came Weaver’s funeral at 1 p.m. Services for David Lewis, Jesse Jones and Alva Bennett began an hour later, in Philippi and in Buckhannon. Later, the memorial service was held for Groves in Cleveland.

Near the mine, sealed off by federal and state regulators, more than 100 people gathered Sunday morning at the Sago Baptist Church. The church had been a gathering place for families during the vigil for the trapped miners. It was where they first heard all the men were alive, and where they got the agonizing news hours later that all but one had died.

Churchgoers sang hymns on Sunday, including “The Sweet Bye and Bye” and “Farther Along,” which speak of accepting God’s unfathomable plan.

The Rev. Wease Day urged worshippers not to look for someone to blame.

Instead, Day said, worshippers should imagine they had only 10 hours to live, and write a note about how they would spend those final hours.

Anna McCloy, wife of the lone survivor of the mine disaster, 26-year-old Randal McCloy Jr., spoke briefly with reporters Sunday, but asked that attention focus on those whose lives were to be remembered.

“We are thinking of them today and throughout this difficult time, and we ask you to please keep all the families in your thoughts and prayers,” she said.

Outside Weaver’s funeral, 72-year-old Sam Felton said that’s just what the families of those killed at Sago mine need.

“Keep praying for us,” Felton said.