MACON, Ga. — George Vining was Central Georgia's first World War II casualty, dying in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
He was a native of Macon's Pleasant Hill Community, and joined the Navy in 1940. As an African-American serving in America's segregated military, he was assigned to work as a mess attendant aboard the battleship USS California -- one of four battleships to sink that day.
In 2021, Vining's headstone was found to be in poor condition; the stone was cracked in half in Linwood Cemetery. After several people reached out in an effort to help, the process of replacing his headstone is now underway.
Yolanda Latimore is the president of the Macon Cemetery Preservation Corporation. She says it took six years for his body to return from Hawaii.
“In the obituary, in his obituary in the Telegraph, he wasn’t buried until 1947. We all know he was killed on Dec. 7, 1941,” she said.
Latimore says they’ve looked for Vining’s relatives and in the search, something interesting turned up.
“It’s an application for his headstone, which was signed by his mother Janice Vining,” she said.
That application was put in a year after his burial.
“It was signed off in Sept. 1948, so she actually signed off on the headstone that we're getting replaced now,” said Latimore.
Another person helping with the headstone’s restoration is David Mitchell, the executive director of Atlanta Preservation Center.
“A member of my family was directly affected because of Pearl Harbor. The after effect of Pearl Harbor made him join the services and subsequently he was killed a month after the war ended,” said Mitchell.
Mitchell, like other volunteers, heard of 13WMAZ's previous story on the condition of Vining’s headstone and wanted to help.
“The idea that Mr. Vining went out and did this... it seems like a very small thing in return for me to come out and do this,” he said.
On Saturday, he began the months long process of restoration.
“So, the first thing you've got to do is, you've got to get it,” he said.
Then, it’s a matter of restoring and reinstalling.
“When you bring it back here to put back together, there’s still a process then because you still want to set it correctly, so it's not like you come back in one piece and just stick it back,” he said.
Mitchell says he’s just doing his duty.
“Love is bound by a sense of duty and duty is what brought him here, and duty is what brought me here," he said.
The process could take up to six months to finish.
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