"I think it speaks volume of preserving our history. Not only his burial site, but preserving our history so that we can share, share it with especially the young people," said Yolanda Latimore, director of Macon Cemetery Preservation Corporation.
With help from David Mitchell with the Atlanta Preservation Center, they were able to repair and restore Vining's headstone and make it new again in eight months. He says the cost of repairs is priceless.
"The cost was about 70 years of not being done, and one of the things you do when you do something out of love, there is no cost," Mitchell said.
George Vining enlisted in the Navy in 1940. After completing training in Norfolk, Virginia, he was sent to Pearl Harbor. He was assigned as a mess attendant, second class on the U.S.S. California.
On the morning of December 7, 1941, an attack was launched on Pearl Harbor. His body didn't return to Macon until 1947. A funeral was held for the 20-year-old veteran on October 22, 1947.
Latimore says she hasn't been able to locate current relatives. Next to Vining's grave lays his mother, Janie Vining. When she requested her son's headstone, her married name was Janie Vining Fulmore. There was some confusion at one point about which relative was next to George Vining.
John Cole is in the Georgia National Guard, he visited Vinings resting place to pay his respects. He says veterans who are laid to rest at Macon's Lindwood Cemetery shouldn't be forgotten.
"If we don't come back to these cemeteries and remember stories like this, then they're forgotten," Cole said.
Mitchell says he's glad that 81 years later, people remember those who served in Pearl Harbor and "respect and love those that gave their lives for us."
Other people buried at the Linwood Cemetery include former U.S. House Representative Jefferson Franklin Long and Lewis H. Williams. In Macon, there is an elementary school named after him, known as L.H. Williams. This is the same school George Vining attended when it was called L.H. Williams Grammar School.
Latimore says you can help volunteer to clean up the cemetery every second Saturday of each month.