Who was James Ballentine and why is the Uptown VFW named for him?

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They once hosted ladies auxiliary card games, officer luncheons and Armistice Day dances.

These days, Minneapolis’ more-than-a-century-old James Ballentine VFW Post 246 is better known for live music and events like “Midwest Karaoke” shows or psychedelic dance nights.

The Lyndale Avenue venue (often called the Uptown VFW) is also home to Washburn High School’s annual “battle of the bands” contest.

Washburn parent Aaron Vap was at the event last year when he became curious about the VFW’s namesake.

He wrote to Curious Minnesota, the Strib’s reader-powered reporting project, to ask: “Who is James Ballentine and why is the VFW on Lake and Lyndale named for him?”

Ballentine was a South High track star and a top University of Minnesota football player who was just 25 when he was killed in World War I.

During Post 246’s very first meeting 105 years ago, the veterans took on the name “in honor of the eighth ward boy … who lost his life in the Argonne forest,” the Minneapolis Journal reported at the time.

Members of the post still gather each May for a service at Ballentine’s grave in Lakewood Cemetery, said Post 246 board chair Eric Swenson.

“The Saturday before Memorial Day, a bunch of us go down there and just do a little ceremony, and just have a breakfast and get together after,” Swenson said.

Ballentine was born in Rochester in 1893, according to a biography compiled by the VFW post.

His family later moved to Harriet Avenue in Minneapolis. Ballentine, known as “Jimmy,” became a standout athlete at South High School.

He was vice president of the “S” club for students who won athletic letters, and captain of the school’s track team, according to a Minneapolis Morning Tribune account. In 1912 he won the U.S. quarter mile championship in Chicago.

He went on to Hamline University, where he was on the “crack” 1-mile relay team in 1914, the Tribune wrote. That fall he transferred to the University of Minnesota as a law student. He was “a halfback on the powerful 1916 Gopher football machine” and a track leader.

He enlisted in May 1917, along with 23 other members of the Gophers football team.

During his physical exam to enter officers training school at Fort Snelling, doctors initially turned him down, “on the ground that his feet would prevent him from running,” the Minneapolis Sunday Tribune wrote. “A few of the star’s track marks were exhibited and the army decided he could run despite the scientific analysis and he was passed on through.”

Ballentine sailed to France that summer. Before heading to the front, he participated in a big track and field meet near Paris, winning the 100-yard dash.

A lieutenant in the machine gun division, Ballentine was wounded in action in the Argonne forest in northeastern France days before the war ended in November 1918. He later died of his wounds in January 1919, the Tribune reported.

Ballentine wasn’t buried at Lakewood until 1921, when his body was sent from France to New York and then Minneapolis by train.

By that time, James Ballentine VFW Post 246 had been meeting for two years. The group conducted his graveside service.

The Minneapolis post has since maintained an annual tradition of holding a graveside service in honor of Ballentine, as its ranks came to include veterans from World War II, the Vietnam War and more recent foreign conflicts.

Through the decades, the number of Veterans of Foreign Wars posts in Minnesota and the U.S. first climbed steeply and then began to fall as membership and finances declined.

The organization was first founded in 1899 by a small group of Spanish-American War veterans in Ohio. Membership hit a peak of more than 2 million in 1992, according to a Military.com report, and has been in decline ever since.

VFW halls have been closing one by one in the Twin Cities, and some area VFW posts have disbanded or merged.

In Minneapolis, James Ballentine VFW Post 246 is the only one left. They own the building on Lyndale Avenue and in recent years brought in El Jefe Cocina.

While Mexican food, pulltabs and live music do bring in crowds, Swenson also credits a connection to community for the post’s longevity.

They host fundraisers for members, recently building a home wheelchair ramp, and area youth sports teams.

“Doing that, I think, brings people in because then they feel a little more connected, rather than it just being a bar or restaurant,” said Swenson. “It’s just something a little more meaningful.”

The post also fundraises for the girls basketball team at South High — alma mater of their “S” man namesake, Ballentine.

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