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A Redwood City man who died in World War I will finally receive a headstone at the Historic Union Cemetery on Friday.
George Dewey Allain was born in 1896 in Redwood City and died in 1918 while serving in the U.S. Navy during the First World War. For over 100 years, he’s been buried at the Union Cemetery without the veteran headstone he deserves.
Maggie Coleman, a member of the Historic Union Cemetery Association of Redwood City, decided that that she needed to change. Coleman has found dozens of veterans buried at the Union Cemetery who deserve special designation on their headstones. As she started working down the list, Allain happened to be one of the first.
After navigating a bureaucratic process with Veterans Affairs, Redwood City’s Historic Union Cemetery Association successfully proved Allain’s military service and has finally received his several-hundred-pound headstone.
On Friday at noon, Roman Marble Shop, a building supplier in Redwood City, will install the headstone as close to Allain’s plot as the Union Association can determine. Kathy Klebe, the association president, said that they have “really good records to tell us pretty much where everyone is buried,” though in Allain’s case, the records aren’t totally precise.
To prove the worthiness of a headstone to Veterans Affairs, the cemetery association must show that a veteran was truly in service and either discharged or died in service, which can be difficult, Klebe said, for service members without Social Security numbers.
The Historic Union Cemetery Association has another application pending for the headstone of another vet, though it’s faced some delays because he was in a remote part of the world. Veterans Affairs had to send the application to the National Archives and Records Administration to verify these details.
Stop by the historic cemetery to see the new headstone at 330 Woodside Road, or sign up for a tour on the association’s website.
