700 Attend Victims’ Funerals : Mourning: Relatives, friends bid farewells to three killed in van accident on their way home from a Catholic pilgrimage.

A bouquet of giant white chrysanthemums and roses lay atop the gray lacquered casket where Chinh Vu rested. Wearing white head bands that symbolized their mourning, Vu’s relatives wept as the casket descended into the grave.

“He was a good man, as pure and precious as a fragrant white rose,” said Father Ha Thanh Do, who led Saturday’s funeral service for Vu, 28, one of the five Orange County residents who died Aug. 14 when a van with 11 people returning from a Catholic pilgrimage in Missouri crashed.

Relatives and friends of Vu and of two other victims, Trinh Thi Nguyen, 54, and Danh Pham, 28, gathered at various Orange County memorial parks Saturday to lay them to rest.

At each victim’s funeral, about 700 people, many clad in white, attended church services. Do said white is the color of mourning in Vietnamese culture.

St. Callistus Catholic Church in Garden Grove overflowed with mourners who prayed for Vu, described by many as a devout Catholic.

“Chinh went to the pilgrimage to try to figure out if it was his calling to become a priest,” said Rick Le, 24, Vu’s friend who also attended the 18th Marian Days celebration in Carthage, Mo. “It was a total shock when I found out about his death. We left the retreat six hours after his group did and I heard the news when I came home the next day. . . . It’s a great loss for all of us.”

Vu had been the choir director for his church and a group leader for a Catholic missionary group since he came to the United States in 1991 with his family.

He is survived by his parents and nine brothers and sisters, two of whom live in Vietnam.

Do said the Vu family has dedicated much of their time to the church. Thuy Vu, 24, the youngest of the siblings, is undergoing religious training to become a nun.

Flanked by sobbing relatives at the funeral at Angel’s Lawn Cemetery in Anaheim, Thuy Vu drew her strength in leading the choir and singing in her brother’s memory. Wearing a gold cross pinned to her shirt collar, she remained calm and composed.

But once the casket disappeared into the ground, and her aunt beside her wept, she began to cry.

Her father, Hien Vu, bowed his head and stared fixedly at the ground.

“I love my son,” said the 67-year-old man, his eyes tired from grieving. “As a Catholic, I have faith in Christ. Everything Christ wants from me, I will offer it to God, even if it means my son. I do it without complaints.”

The two other accident victims were both buried at the Good Shepherd Cemetery in Huntington Beach.

A mass for Pham, who worked as a computer programmer in Irvine, was held at the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Westminster.

Some of the mourners proceeded to the Huntington Beach grave site where flower wreaths and bouquets were a part of an outpouring of affection from friends, co-workers and church members.

Pham came to the United States in 1983 with his two older brothers and enjoyed working with computers, his friends said. He was remembered by many as a joyful individual who loved to sing with the choir and work with Catholic youth groups.

“He will be missed,” said Son Minh Tran, a friend.

Nguyen is survived by six children whose ages range from 14 to 27. She served as the treasurer of the Vietnamese Catholic Center and helped organize the trip to Missouri.

Her son Tony Bui, 27, said Saturday that Nguyen had raised $3,000 during the Missouri pilgrimage to help renovate a church in Vietnam. Nguyen had planned to travel to Vietnam on Friday to begin rebuilding the church.

“We’re going to go ahead and raise the rest of the money and my sister is going to bring it to Vietnam,” Bui said after the funeral services at St. Polycarp Catholic Church in Stanton. “That’s what my mother wanted.”