Mourners gathered Thursday in Chapel Hill, N.C., for a memorial service for 12 members of the George and Jean Brumley family killed Saturday when their chartered plane crashed into an African mountainside.

Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina had been lifelong friends with Jean Brumley, 67, of Atlanta. Dole said the world had lost a caring and helpful person.

“I’m just heartbroken,” Dole said of her friend’s death while in Lawrence, Kan., attending dedication ceremonies of the institute honoring her husband, former Sen. Bob Dole.

“We were very, very close friends,” Elizabeth Dole said. “All through life, we were in touch.”

Twelve members of the Brumley family, spanning three generations with ties to Atlanta and North Carolina, died Saturday when their chartered plane crashed into Mount Kenya, along with two South African pilots.

Dole and Jean Brumley grew up together in Salisbury, N.C., where they were drawn together by their mothers, who were also best friends, Dole said. From there they were classmates in grammar school, friends at summer camp and students together at Boyden High School and Duke University, Class of 1958.

When Brumley married in 1958, she said she wanted Dole to wear her wedding veil at her wedding.

Seventeen years later, her longtime friend did, when she married Bob Dole.

“We were together when she chose the veil. I was in her wedding,” Dole said. “When I made my presidential run, she hosted a fund-raiser. This is incredibly painful for everybody.”

Brumley was co-chairwoman of the 2001 campaign that raised more than $18 million for an expansion of the Trinity Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, which she attended. She also was a board member at Families First, and she served 16 years on the board of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

Among the family members killed in the crash were George Brumley III, his wife, Julia, and their two children, of Chapel Hill.

Elizabeth Dole, shown on her wedding day in 1975. The veil Dole wore when she married former Sen. Bob Dole belonged to her friend Jean Brumley, who died in a plane crash Saturday in Kenya.