NARBERTH, Pa. (AP) — Friends and former colleagues, including Vice President Joe Biden, two former Pennsylvania governors, judges and others on Tuesday mourned the loss of former U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, calling him an "irreplaceable" man who was so determined to beat a string of illnesses that he managed to teach one last law class less than two weeks before his death.

Biden, former Govs. Ed Rendell and Dick Thornburgh, and other power brokers from various walks of life were among hundreds attending the funeral in a Philadelphia suburb to pay their respects. Specter died at his suburban home on Sunday at 82 after battling non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

U.S. District Judge Jan DuBois, a law school friend of Specter's, recalled how Specter approached everything in life "with intensity, determination and grit," managing to teach one last law class on Oct. 4 at the University of Pennsylvania Law School on the relationship between Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court.