Amish families in Nickel Mines, Pa., gathered on Thursday to bury four of the five girls killed in this week's schoolhouse massacre as five other girls remain in hospital.

Members of the Amish community took horse-drawn buggies to attend funerals for the girls before going to a hilltop cemetery where the girls were to be buried. All roads leading to the village had been blocked off for the funerals.

A man rides past a flag flying at half-mast in Bart, Pa., Thursday morning, Oct. 5, 2006 as the area prepares for four funerals. On Monday, in Nickel Mines, a gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, laid siege to a one-room schoolhouse killing five Amish schoolgirls.
(Mel Evans/AP)

Amish families had asked for privacy as they prayed for the girls in the homes of their families.

The funerals for Naomi Rose Ebersole, 7; Marian Fisher, 13; Mary Liz Miller, 8; and her sister Lena Miller, 7, were held on Thursday.

The funeral for the fifth girl killed in the shooting, Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12, is on Friday.

Little girls play on the steps of an Amish schoolhouse on Tuesday in a Pennsylvania town near where a gunman entered a school and shot 10 girls the previous day.
(Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press)

On Monday, a gunman, identified as 31-year-old truck driver Charles Roberts, broke into a one-room school, separated the girls from the boys and the adults, and gunned down the girls from the community.

Three died at the scene and two died later in hospital. Roberts killed himself after the rampage.

There is a suicide note and much speculation, but it may never be completely clear what motivated Roberts to execute Amish children. The Amish are known for modest dress, horse-drawn buggies, trust in God and an abhorrence of violence.

Toll may climb to six

Meanwhile, one of the five wounded girls who are still in hospital may have been removed from life-support equipment.

Lancaster County coroner G. Gary Kirchner told the Associated Press he had received a call from a doctor at Penn State Children's Hospital in Hershey who said doctors expected to take one girl off life support so that she could be brought home.

Dr. D. Holmes Morton, who runs a clinic that serves Amish children, said Thursday that the reports that a six-year-old had been taken off life support and taken home to die were accurate "as far as I know.

"I just think at this point mostly these families want to be left alone in their grief and we ought to respect that," Morton said.

Canadian fundraising effort underway

The funerals come as a Canadian fundraising effort is underway to help the families.

The Amish traditionally shun medical insurance, and the wounded girls face long and expensive recoveries. This has prompted Canadian Mennonites, whose faith has the same roots as that of the Amish, to step gently in.

"Their understanding of their biblical faith would be that we care for each other," Rick Cober Bauman of the Mennonite Central Committee in Ontario told CBC News. "And they take that very seriously and choose to go that route rather than have any kind of insurance."

The fundraising effort is an unusual one. There is no target or goal, and Bauman says the amount Canadians donate will be confidential.

"We don't give updates or how many dollars have come in," he said.

Simple funerals planned

An Amish girl is typically laid to rest in a white dress, a cape, and a white prayer-covering on her head, funeral director Philip Furman told the Associated Press.

Amish custom calls for simple wooden caskets, narrow at the head and feet, and wider in the middle.

The service typically lasts about two hours before mourners travel in buggies to a cemetery.

With files from the Associated Press