SECOND LIEUTENANT JAMES CONRAD THAANUM
ROYAL GARRISON ARTILLERY
12TH AUGUST 1915 AGE 27
BURIED: BEAUVAL COMMUNAL CEMETERY, FRANCE
James Thaanum had been in France for less than a month when the house where he was billeted received a direct hit. He died of wounds the following day.
By the time the war was over, Thaanum's parents lived in America: Maplehurst Dairy Farm, Winthrop, Maine. However, James Conrad was not a US citizen. Born in Dumfries, Scotland, where his mother's parents lived, he had been educated at Wallasey Grammar School, Cheshire and was an engineering graduate of Edinburgh University. He was working in Glasgow when the war broke out.
He enlisted early in the war and went abroad after 9 months on 20 July 1915; he was dead just over three weeks later.
His inscription quotes a popular text from Psalm 31:15 - "My times are in thy hand", on which W.F. Lloyd, 1791-1853, based a hymn of the same name.
My times are in thy hand;
My God, I wish them there;
My life, my friends, my soul, I leave
Entirely to thy care.
And Christopher Newman Hall a poem:
My times are in thy hand!
I know not what a day
Or e'en an hour may bring to me,
But I am safe while trusting thee,
Though all things fade away.
All weakness, I
On him rely
Who fix'd the earth and spread the starry sky.