Its nothing.. Most of the Fugates didnt seem to mind being blue. The following piece was collected at a dinner table with a group of girls out celebrating a friends birthday. The railroad didnt come through eastern Kentucky until the coal mines were developed around 1912, and it took another 30 or 40 years to lay down roads along the local creeks. The Wilson Family of West Virginia. The strain of inherited blue began to disappear as the recessive gene spread to families where it was unlikely to be paired with a similar gene. Bessie had an iron pot of clothes boiling in her front yard, but she graciously allowed the doctor to draw some of her blood. In the Inuit communities, scientists had pinpointed the problem, a deficiency of an enzyme that converted methemoglobin to hemoglobin. The inbreeding caused the recessive gene to appear in both parents. Stacys son has built a modern house next door, but the old logger wont hear of leaving the cabin he built with timber he personally cut and hewed for Luna and their 13 children. When you look at the numbers, its clear that most of Moundsville is a buncha fun-lovin rednecks. It was hard to get out, so they intermarried, says Dennis Stacy, a 51-year-old coal miner and amateur genealogist who has filled a loose-leaf notebook with the laboriously traced blood lines of several local families. When you click through real estate links on our site, we earn an affiliate commission. The condition is called methemoglobinemia, which is a disorder that reduces the amount of oxygen in the blood and body tissues, therefore making the skin appear blue. Sometimes, it can be really faint though, so you have to look closely at their lips or fingernails. Lives in the south or midwest (or West Virginia), Walmarts, Golden Corrals, Bass Pro Shops, and Dollar Generals nearby. Informant: "So, what my brother told me is that there's a story that there are people in the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, near the campus I guess, and there is skin is blue. And unleash your spirit. West Virginia, constituent state of the United States of America. It began whenMartin Fugate, aFrench orphan, settled on the banks of eastern Kentuckys Troublesome Creek to claim a land grant in the early 19th century. Bluefield is only 75% white, and most of its residents finished high school. Theyre known simply as the blue people in the hills and hollows around Troublesome and Ball Creeks. In the 1950s more than a fifth of the working population worked in the coal . 7000 BC: Archaic Period in which people built basic shelters and made stone weapons and stone tools "If you took any random person in the population, maybe one in 100,000 would carry this gene, if that many," says Ricki Lewis, a science writer and author of the textbook "Human Genetics: Concepts and Applications," now in its 13th edition. Benjy was born in a maternity ward near Hazard, Kentucky and was rushed by ambulance to a medical clinic in Lexington to find help for his blue problem. That five-star symbol is the same as the one on the Friendly City flagwhich is drawing approval well outside of West Virginia. Where people wear camo to church. This publication also contains information on state and federal agencies; postal information; the Constitutions of the United States and West Virginia; and, considerable information on counties, municipalities and various organizations. Cause, you know, rednecks like to hunt, drink, smoke and shoot things. Her name was Ruth Pendergrass, and she had been trying to stir up medical interest in the blue people ever since a dark blue woman walked into the county health department one bitterly cold afternoon and asked for a blood test. Correction, June 9, 2008: The article originally stated that a handful of states allow marriages between first cousins. Population: 10,486Mobile home parks in area: 3rd in WVBars per capita: 3rdGun stores per capita: 5th in West Virginia. Benjamin Stacy was the last of the Fugate family members to have blue skin and lived a healthy life. Upon further research, I saw that the original story was based on a specific family that was said to be suffering from blue-tinted skin. Apparently, it shows more easily when theyre cold!. The gold of the helmet did not reflect the gold utilized in our colors today. 1 talking about this. The solution, oddly enough, was a commonly used dye called methylene blue. There are even video games about rednecks. The drugs effects are temporary, as methylene blue is normally excreted in the urine. One of the supermarket tabloids once sent a reporter to find out about the blue people, and she was distressed with his preoccupation with intermarriages. As a bonus, theres a Golden Corral, several Dollar Stores and many Waffle Houses in the area. WHEELING, W.Va. (WTRF) If you drive by the 10th Street Parking Garage in Wheeling, a blue-and-white striped pattern may have caught your eye. Methemoglobinemia is a rare hereditary blood disorder that results from excess levels of methomoglobin (metHb) in the blood. Aside from the stark discoloration of the carriers skin, there are no serious problems associated with the disease. Patrick was all hunched down in the hall. Besides the number of bars, mobile home parks and places to buy shotguns, its at the base of the hills, where you know the deer and turkey probably walk right into town. Whoo-whee, New Martinsville! West Virginia's population has grown very slowly since the 1950s, at many times losing people . Lunas father, Levy Fugate, was one of Zachariah Fugates sons. By the time theyd get to the top, the person would be gone. Matt Harvey Dan Cunningham was born Jan. 16, 1850, in Jackson County. The West Virginia motto is Montani semper liberi, and the state is one of the most mountainous in the country; sometimes it is called the "little Switzerland" of America, and once I heard an irreverent local citizen call it the "Afghanistan of the United States."The precipitous upland nature of the terrain makes naturally for three things: (1) poor communications; (2) fierce sectionalism; (3 . Book is out of print, borrowed from Special Collections at the St. Louis County Library, St. Louis, MO. They were real, and they really were blue, thanks to a recessive genetic condition. The number of tobacco stores per capita (we call it the chew factor) is the highest in West Virginia here in Charles Town. One look at Luke was enough to get those doctors down here in a hurry, says Pendergrass, who joined Cawein to look for more blue people. The famous painting of the blue Fugates is not based on an actual family photograph, but was a composite illustration created by artist Walt Spitzmiller for a 1982 magazine article. Stereotypes about West Virginian breeding practices have long been linked to the states poverty. If the blue people did have methemoglobinemia, the next step was to find out the cause. You could tell how much it bothered them to be blue.. Benjy lost his blue tint within a few weeks, and now he is about as normal looking a seven-year-old boy as you could hope to find. Cawein eventually found a small population of people in the back woods of Appalachia, many with a blue skin disorder. Martin Fugate arrived in the unsettled frontier of Kentucky in 1820. Blue human aren't possible. This then turns the carriers blood into a normal red hue which is then reflected in a change in skin tone. West By God is right. By the end of this spectacular journey, you'll be saying "I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT JUST HAPPENED BUT I LOOOVED IT." Read more Blue Man Group 4,830 reviews So, hold our beers and watch this. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. "They were bluer'n hell," said Cawein in a 1982 interview with Science 82. Its post office is closed in 1935. "Methomoglobin is an oxidized form of hemoglobin that has a decreased affinity for oxygen, resulting in a reduced ability to release oxygen to tissues." Well, according to the official bible of literature, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a redneck is: A white person who lives in a small town or in the country especially in the southern U.S., who typically has a working-class job, and who is seen by others as being uneducated and having opinions and attitudes that are offensive.. valley in the mountains in West Virginia with a barn and cows visible Stephanie Pittman 561 followers More information Blue People of West Virginia | . Mary Fugate said that the gene is very dominant in the Smith line but there is still no concrete answers as to what couple started the shades of blue people. Dark blue lips and fingernails are the only traces of Martin Fugates legacy left in the boy; that, and the recessive gene that has shaded many of the Fugates and their kin blue for the past 162 years. And they married the people who lived closest to them, the Combses, Smiths, Ritchies, and Stacys. The afflicted were embarrassed about their condition and adamant about talking to Cawein. After a 1997 survey, the boundary line between Jefferson County, West Virginia, and Loudoun County, Virginia, was declared to be the watershed line of the top of the ridge of the Blue Ridge mountains, as documented in the survey. In the 1880s and 1890s, writers such as Mary Noailles Murfree and John Fox Jr. traveled across Appalachia, looking for local color, and overstated the degree to which mountain populations lived in isolation. All them old fellers way back then was blue. The Registered Agent on file for this company is Mikeooney. The condition that made the Fugates blue causes large amounts of methemoglobin (which is a blue type of hemoglobin) to circulate in the blood. Finding it ridiculous herself, the Informant told me that she still enjoys being a part of the joke. And at least in one famous case, a man turned his skin permanently blue from drinking too much colloidal silver supplements and rubbing colloidal silver cream on his skin (the condition is called argyria or silver poisoning). "They vary in color from white to black, often have blue eyes and straight hair, and they are generally industrious. During the same time period, missionaries reported pervasive ignorance and poverty, with large families living together in ramshackle cabins. One came from a blue Flugate whod joined the Army and been sent to Panama, where his son was born bright blue. 5 years ago when I was on a swingerparty she got pregnant with me. In most people, there is an enzyme present called diaphorase that converts methemoglobin back into a usable form of hemoglobin. So I knew we had the defect defined.. The marriage of one of their blue boys, Zachariah, to his mothers sister triggered the line of succession that would result in the birth, more than 100 years later, of Benjy Stacy. The risk skyrockets if you're sharing blood.". He left the Fugates with a supply of the methylene blue in pill form, as it must be taken regularly to keep the skin a normal color, by continually eliminating the mis-colored hemoglobin. Because the Fugate family lived in such an isolated part of the Kentucky, they intermarried with a neighboring family for generations which led to a relatively pure gene pool where the met-H gene appeared much more frequently. Martin married a red-headed American woman named Elizabeth Smith and the two set up a homestead on the banks of Troublesome Creek near Hazard County, Kentucky. Scott, E.M. The relation of diaphorase of human erythrocytes to inheritance of methemolglobinemia, Journal of Clinical Investigation, 39, 1960.3. This results in brown blood giving Caucasian patients a bluish hue to their skin. by Cathy TrostScience82, November, 1982. The 2010 survey revealed that there were 1,852,994 people living in West Virginia, which represented a modest rise of just 2.5% on the numbers declared at the 2000 census. More than a cent. Stacy counts Fugate blood in his own veins. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Intermarrying with people other than close relatives meant the likelihood of any Fugate descendant being born with the condition reduced. Diet: Insects, seeds, and grains. The Appalachian region of the US is a beautiful place with a rich and sometimes tragic history. At last they were free of their "blue" shade and were no longer embarrassed. My grandmother Luna on my dads side was a blue Fugate. One day, one of the older mountain men cornered the doctor. Just like the Alaskans, their blood had accumulated so much of the blue molecule that it over- whelmed the red of normal hcmoglobin that shows through as pink in the skin of most Caucasians. Blue People of West Virginia | . 2019 Foreign-Born Population 30.2k people As of 2020, 1.64% of West Virginia residents (29.6k people) were born outside of the United States, which is lower than the national average of 13.5%. Eventually, the recessive gene began to disappear once coal mining and the railroad opened the community to outsiders. West Virginia had just one carrier in its exchange in 2015 - Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield - although the carrier only offered 12 plans in 2014, and bumped that up to 14 in 2015. Princeton is located down on I-77, before you make the climb into Virginia. Somebody with only one gene would not have the condition but could pass the gene to a child. Her name was Ruth Pendergrass, and she had been trying to stir up medical interest in the blue people ever since a dark blue woman walked into the county health department one bitterly cold afternoon and asked for a blood test. The condition that made the Fugates blue causes large amounts of methemoglobin (which is a blue type of hemoglobin) to circulate in the blood. ( Returnto the corrected sentence.). He married a red-haired American named Elizabeth Smith with a very pale complexion. Benjy was a pretty big item in the hospital, his mother says with a grin. For more West Virginia reading, check out: In order to rank the most redneck cities in West Virginia, we had to determine what criteria makes a redneck. Little Blue Run in Chester West Virginia is gone 8/8/2004: The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review writes about Little Blue Run: Dangerous disposal, by Alyson Walls . So you can tell if someone is a product of incest if their skin is blue! Feeder food: Grain and birdseed. It is almost certain that Martin was a descendant of the Fugate family of Russell County, Virginia and probably of French origin. He was a French orphan who knew nothing of his lineage. Edit Old Gold & Blue Page Even so, Cawein still gets calls for advice. Its blue, and their people have always had blue skin because of all the intermarrying and incest. Its a part of our culture. So you know theres some good fishin there. Born Jan. 16, 1869, in Marion County, Ephraim Franklin Morgan went on to become one of West Virginia's governors. How far from Flatwoods , ky? The region's first coal miners primarily were African Americans, both enslaved and free. In alphabetical order, these counties are: Barbour, Berkeley, Boone, Braxton, Brooke, Cabell, Calhoun, Clay, Doddridge, Fayette, Gilmer, Grant, Greenbrier, Hampshire, Hancock, Hardy, Harrison, Jackson, Jefferson, Kanawha, Lewis, Lincoln, Logan, Marion, Marshall, Mason, McDowell, Mercer, Mineral, Mingo, Monongalia, Monroe, Morgan, Nicholas, Ohio, Because of the dispersion of fluids, the solution only lasts for about a day so the carrier would have to drink a serving every day. Cawein advised giving the child methylene blue and not worrying about it. This is redneck wonderland. The range of blue that could express itself in the blue Fugates ranged from light blue to dark blue like a blueberry, with even darker blue on the lips and fingernail beds. In another neighborhood of this rust-belt city of 46,000, Pam and Ted Keesee have their own. They wouldnt come into the waiting room. Studying the problem, Cawein figured out that he could convert methemoglobin to hemoglobin without the enzyme. But as Kentucky became more populated and more genes came into the Fugate family tree, there were far fewer children born blue. In people with methemoglobinemia, the skin appears blue because the veins beneath the skin are coursing with dark blue blood. Wingspan: 6.3-8.3 in (Black-Capped), 5.9-7.9 in (Carolina) Chickadees are tiny little birds that are very easy to recognize because of their "black cap" and black bib. When Benjamin "Benjy" Stacy was born in 1975, nurses and doctors were shocked and confused. type to search . Most of them old people went by that name the blue Fugates. If the condition were inherited as a recessive trait, it would appear most often in an inbred line. As a result of a coincidental meeting of recessive genes, intermarriage and inbreeding, members of the Fugate family were born with a rare condition that made them visibly discoloured. 15,898 100 A Cinephile's Guide to Biographical Films. Since rail lines and paved roads didn't make it out to Troublesome Creek for nearly a century, the blue recessive gene was passed down to generations of Fugates and neighboring families, all of whom came to be known as "the blue people of Kentucky.". Its located along the Ohio way, way out on Route 250, so you know the locals here have lots of free reign to shoot stuff, blow things up and mud to their hearts content. The blue Fugates who did not wish to remain blue continued to take the pills, and contacted Dr. Cawein and other doctors to get more of them when needed. Big deal, ive got an extra thumb, and twelve toes, but at least my parents didnt know they were twins until after they had me. When Two Strangers Lost the Genetic Lottery Martin Fugate arrived in the unsettled frontier of Kentucky in 1820. Google Maps. The reasons for this almost have to do entirely with coal. We used science and data to determine which cities in WV are redneck heaven. Blow your mind. Comet C/2022 E3 was first discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility, a public-private partnership aimed at a systematic study of the optical night sky. Her name was Ruth Pendergrass, and she had been trying to stir up medical interest in the blue people ever since a dark blue woman walked into the county health department one bitterly cold afternoon and asked for a blood test. 2017-2018 Blue Book Frontice (p. I-VIII) Section 1: Executive (p. 1-330) Section 2: Legislative (p. 331-508) Two YouTubers have shared an inside look into Odd as they documented themselves traveling down a windy two-lane road. Such people tend to be very blue only at birth, probably because newborns normally have smaller amounts of diaphorase. Had you guys just ditched school even more, you might have won this whole thing. Have you ever heard the song, Blue Moon of Kentucky? Its pretty well-known and popular. I can see that old blue running out of my skin, he confided. However, now that the Fugate gene pool is more diverse, there is less need for this treatment, as fewer blue children are being born. astounding ignorance toward his own countrymen, [are neither] unique [n]or particularly common to the region. Fugates married other Fugates. Exhibitions in the McGee Gallery bring ideas and objects together in new ways, highlighting the breadth and depth of the Art Museum's permanent collection: In/Humanity: Combat and War in Art, an . There are still blue people around today, but some of them developed their blueness from ingesting colloidal silver. Her lips were as dark as a bruise. By 1850, approximately half of Kanawha County's slaves worked in the salt industrymany mined coal to fuel the furnaces. Methemoglobin which is blue, is a nonfunctional form of the red hemoglobin that carries oxygen. It's true that, through the 19 th century, transportation networks developed slowly in the rugged, westernmost portion of Virginia (incorporated as West Virginia in 1863). She looked like she was having a heart attack. All rights reserved. It can make a claim that it should top this list, since it has the most people. But Cawein knew from earlier studies that the body has an alternative method of converting methemoglobin back to normal. She gets upset at all the talk of inbreeding among the Fugates. Got a question about todays news? The condition was clearly genetic, but the key for Cawein was reading reports of hereditary methemoglobinemia among isolated Inuit populations in Alaska where blood relatives often married. Legend has it that Martin himself may have had a blue tinge to his skin, but not the dark blue color of later Fugates. Dennis 4 Comments. Theyre normal people theyre good people. *. Benjy Stacy is one of the last of the blue Fugates. Population: 7,164Mobile home parks per capita: 2nd in West VirginiaBars per capita: 2nd in the stateWalmart rank: 3rd. Have you ever heard of the blue Fugates of Troublesome Creek? she asked the doctors. We see fit that they will grow up to be strong holler girls or boys. Cancel any time, no strings attached. "That's crazy.". Regardless, this place might be the whitest, redneckest of them all. The doctors finally came to the conclusion that Benjys color was due to blood inherited from generations back.. The entry was on the blue men, not of West Virginia, but of the Mountain State's neighbor, Kentucky, . If you stayed awake in high-school biology, you might remember that blood is red because red blood cells are packed with proteins called hemoglobin. 3. Zach took the doctor even farther up Copperhead Hollow to see his Aunt Bessie Fugate, who was blue. Stacy recalls that his father-inlaw, Levy Fugate, was part of the family that showed blue. Methemoglobinemia is one of the rare genetic conditions that's treatable with a simple pill. Finally, one day when the frustrated doctor was idling inside the Hazard clinic, Patrick and Rachel Ritchie walked in. If theyd immigrated to other areas, even other areas of Kentucky, they likely would have married non-relatives, and the condition would have faded out of the family long before it did. The small coal mining town in McDowell County received national attention. Settling in the remote hills of Kentucky, there werent a lot of other people nearby, and marrying people who were closely related became common among the Fugates. Theyre prominently featured in reality television. Stumped, the doctor turned to the medical literature for a clue. He concluded that inbreeding levels in Appalachia [are neither] unique [n]or particularly common to the region, when compared with those reported for populations elsewhere or at earlier periods in American history.. February 16, 2012 by Tap Vann. If this story were true everyone in Alabama would be blue. The notion of widespread inbreeding was at least in part the result of crude assumptions about how these isolated forest people might have been perpetuating their communities. Ballengee testified in earlier civil depositions. That was the pain of being blue in a world that is mostly shades of white to black. In the isolated hollows of rural Kentucky, they were known as the blue Fugates and the blue Combses. Scott was a Public Health Service doctor at the Arctic Health Research Center in Anchorage who had discovered hereditary methemoglobinemia among Alaskan Eskimos and Indians. At the National Press Club on Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney noted that his maternal grandmother is descended from someone named Cheney, then quipped, So we had Cheneys on both sides of the familyand we dont even live in West Virginia. (Click here for a video.) Informant: So, what my brother told me is that theres a story that there are people in the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, near the campus I guess, and there is skin is blue. However, the disorder didn't seem to cause any special health problems. She shuns modern conveniences. After analyzing all cities with a decent amount of people in them, we came up with this list as The Most Redneck Cities in West Virginia: Many of these are types of places where old redneck ladies drive their motorized wheelchairs down the middle of town, towing their grandkids in a wagon. When West Virginia University decided to put "Black Lives Matter" decals on the back of their football helmets, the reaction by the people of . Google Maps. It run in that generation who lived up and down Ball [Creek]., They looked like anybody else, cept they had the blue color, Stacy says, sitting in a chair in his plaid flannel shirt and suspenders, next to a cardboard box where a small black piglet, kept as a pet, is squealing for his bottle. Luke was just as blue as Lake Louise on a cool summer day, doctor Charles H. Behlen II told the Tri-City Herald in 1974. Cawein would have no part of it, and he related with glee the news that a film crew sent to Kentucky from Hollywood fled the two mean dogs in every front yard without any film. Scotts Alaskans seemed to match Caweins blue people. Of their seven children, four were blue. Research on intrafamilial marriage in such enclaves is slim. avg. Explainer thanks Edwin Arnold of Appalachian State University, Anthony Harkins of Western Kentucky University, and David Hsiung of Juniata College. Eventually, a nurse named Ruth Pendergrass heard of them, and, along with a hematologist named Madison Cawein III, decided to go meet these locally famous blue people in person. And when you look at the data, its clear this is a really solid place for a redneck to make home. It reduced the brightness of the blue on their skin. there is no "blue-soloution" that turns them back to a "normal" color. Inbreeding in eastern Kentucky has been turning offspring blue since the early 1880s. Before people knew what was going on they described the Fugates and others like them as looking: like anybody else, cept they had the blue color, Bluern hell, indigo blue, almost purple, bluish all over, dark as a bruise, and as blue a woman as I ever saw.. 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Mountain men cornered the doctor, St. Louis County Library, St. Louis Library. To Biographical Films everyone in Alabama would be gone appear most often in an inbred line called. Were blue, thanks to a recessive trait, it can make a claim that it should top this,...
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