CHICAGO — By the hundreds, mourners filed into the pews of a packed church on this city’s South Side on Saturday, clutching one another, weeping and wearing buttons adorned with the smiling face of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old girl whose death has come to represent the miserable cost of gun and gang violence. 

“She is a representative not just of the people in Chicago, she is a representative of people across this nation who have lost their lives,” said Damon Stewart, Ms. Pendleton’s godfather, as he urged people not to politicize her death. 

An array of Washington officials — the first lady, Michelle Obama; Arne Duncan, the education secretary; and Valerie Jarrett, a senior White House adviser — were among dignitaries seated in the front row. Ms. Pendleton, a member of her high school’s majorette team, traveled to Washington to perform during President Obama’s inauguration festivities only a week before she was fatally shot here. 

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who has met with the girl’s family and spoken emotionally of her dreams for her future, attended, too, as did Gov. Patrick J. Quinn, who had alluded to Ms. Pendleton in his State of the State address. 

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