This province consists of northern and southern physiographic regions, which . Eventually, Cawein gained their trust and began taking blood samples. Population: 5,373Tobacco stores per capita: 5th in West VirginiaGun stores per capita: 2ndFishing/bait shops per capita: 2nd. Martin Fugate carried the recessive gene and the odds that he could have married a woman with the same recessive gene were overwhelming - but that is exactly what happened. The methaemoglobinaemia condition, or met-H, reduces someones ability to carry oxygen in the blood, leaving it darker than the colour typically found in veins. They are known for being carriers of a genetic trait that led to the blood disorder methemoglobinemia, causing the skin to appear blue. Devil Anse Hatfield, patriarch of Hatfield clan of 19th-century Hatfield-McCoy feud. Cawein was determined to find a cause and possibly a solution to help this small group of isolated Appalachian people. Population: 5,258Walmart rank: 1stChew factor: 1stAmmo per capita: 9th. You couldve done even better than that. Luna Stacy possessed the good health common to the blue people, bearing at least 13 children before she died at 84. Cawein cheers their bad luck not out of malice but out of a deep respect for the blue people of Troublesome Creek. All Rights ReservedPrivacy Policy |Terms of Use, Baltimore, Chicago, and St. Louis, 1870 Census Index, North Carolina and South Carolina, 1870 Census Index, Virginia and West Virginia, 1870 Census Index, Margaret Christine Otis Baker: A Colonial Woman with an Incredible Story, Carter Braxton: The Signers of the Declaration of Independence, Josiah Bartlett: The Signers of the Declaration of Independence, Everything You Need to Know About the 1890 US Federal Census, The Real Truth Behind Coats of Arms and Family Crests, Curtis King: Unsung Heroes of the Civil War. Finally, one day when the frustrated doctor was idling inside the Hazard clinic, Patrick and Rachel Ritchie walked in. The Fugates, a family living in the hills of Kentucky starting in the 19th century, were commonly known as the "Blue Fugates"[1] or the "Blue People of Kentucky". All them old fellers way back then was blue. This small enclave was no longer isolated and they began to disperse and marry outside of their little clan diminishing the effect of the "blue" gene. Folklore maintained the Fugates were blue due to heart disease or lung problems. The clan kept multiplying. Generations later, a descendant of Martin Fugate, Benjy Stacy, would be born "blue". Chickens are genetically complex. 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. In online research, there was no mention made of "blue" people as recorded in the genealogy book, The Fugate Family of Russell County Virginia, published in 1986, but it has been confirmed in the Fugate discussions on the Genforum. Luna has been dead nearly 20 years now, but her widower survives. She was as blue a woman as I ever saw.. If the blue people did have methemoglobinemia, the next step was to find out the cause. ( Returnto the corrected sentence.). Many wonder why eggs are so diverse. The disorder can cause heart abnormalities and seizures if the amount of methemoglobin in the blood exceeds 20 percent, but at levels between 10 and 20 percent it can cause blue skin without other symptoms. the blue color was gone from their skin, the doctor said. Jaculatorias A San Antonio De Padua, Thankfully, Benjy lost his blue shade after a few weeks and the only lingering effects were blue fingernails and lips when he was cold or angry. Benjy was a pretty big item in the hospital, his mother says with a grin. Its a part of our culture. Said to have originated in Hampshire County, West Virginia. This article is an opinion based on facts and is meant as info-tainment. The clinic doctors only saw her a few times in her life and never for anything serious. Sometimes they married first cousins. Elizabeth had pale white skin, almost translucent. Though West Virginia has had boom-and-bust cycles since, Census Bureau data shows it has lost population every year since 2012 and now has about 1.8 million residents. The family was first discovered in 1958 when one of the blue men, Luke Combs, who was a descendant of another branch of the Fugate family, took his white wife to the University of Kentucky Hospital and doctors paid more attention to him than his wife. Cause, you know, rednecks like to hunt, drink, smoke and shoot things. More than a cent. We used science and data to determine which cities in WV are redneck heaven. Charleston. Blood cells always looked so beautiful to me, he says. The "bluest" of the blue Fugates, Luna Stacy, had 13 children and lived to age 84. Doctors were so astonished by the color of Benjy Stacys skin that they raced him by ambulance from the maternity ward in the hospital near Hazard to a medical clinic in Lexington. For the Fugates, family members expressed the gene to varying degrees. Typically, the blue is isolated to one part of the body. The mountain range is located in the eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsylvania through Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. All lived in isolation from the world, bunched in log cabins up and down the hollows, and so it was only natural that a boy married the girl next door, even if she had the same last name. Martin and Elizabeth had seven children, four being born blue; Zachariah, who was blue, married his mother's sister. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Nov 2005 - Aug 20115 years 10 months. "But if you're marrying your cousin, it's one in eight. Population: 18,763Bars per capita: 6th in West VirginiaFishing/bait shops per capita: 4thMobile home parks per capita: 5th. A transfusion was being prepared when Benjys grandmother spoke up. You know theres lots of rednecks here when you look at the numbers. The Fugate family of Kentucky has been known for their blue skin color for generations. Ask the Explainer. For the first time in their lives, they were pink. Sweet Dreams. Google Maps. 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. Eventually, the recessive gene began to disappear once coal mining and the railroad opened the community to outsiders. They were delighted.". font-family: 'MontserratExtraBold'; Methemoglobinemia is a rare hereditary blood disorder that results from excess levels of methomoglobin (metHb) in the blood. The man who discovered the cure for methemoglobinemia was Madison Cawein III, a hematologist (blood doctor) at the University of Kentucky who heard tales of the "blue people" and went looking for specimens in the 1960s. Martin and Elizabeth had seven children, four being born blue; Zachariah, who was blue, married his mother's sister. Robert C. Byrd, a Democrat, represented the state of West Virginia in Congress for over 57 years, as a Member of the House from the now-defunct 6th District from 1953 to 1959, and as a United States Senator from 1959 to 2010. There are even video games about rednecks. Google Maps. What neither she nor Martin could have known is that they both carried the recessive gene for a rare hereditary blood disorder called methemoglobinemia. Some of the blue people thought the doctor was slightly addled for suggesting that a blue dye could turn them pink. West Virginians became the prototypical hillbillies, and incest served as a crude scientific explanation for their downtrodden social condition. Theyre known simply as the blue people in the hills and hollows around Troublesome and Ball Creeks. His two room log cabin sits in the middle of Laurel Fork Hollow. Cawein, Madison, et. Zach took the doctor even farther up Copperhead Hollow to see his Aunt Bessie Fugate, who was blue. The boy inherited his fathers lankiness and his mothers slightly nasal way of speaking. Curiosity drove him to Hazard where he was introduced to a nurse, Ruth Pendergrass, who had met a "dark blue" woman. (Click here for a video.) Mountain People. Elkins is way out in the middle of nowhere south of Morgantown, at the base of the Appalachians. Their inbreeding led to several medical problems and recessive genes being passed down through each child, such as one that gave some of the offspring blue skin. Dunlaps Gun & Pawn, Hurricane, WV. This small enclave was no longer isolated and they began to disperse and marry outside of their little clan diminishing the effect of the "blue" gene. And by God, they didnt have the enzyme diaphorase. Wait. The Wilson Family of West Virginia. Some of us finished high school and became the "dreaded wife and mother"-as society portrays it. Archives of Internal Medicine, April, 1964.2. She remembers the story very easily, most often humorously, because she remembers the manner in which her brother told her. 11. Tests for abnormal hemoglobin were negative. 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. Alpha Natural Resources. That five-star symbol is the same as the one on the Friendly City flagwhich is drawing approval well outside of West Virginia. The Fugate family of Kentucky once lived in the isolated community of Troublesome Creek. They have between 20,000 and 23,000 genes in about one billion DNA base pairs. Theyre known simply as the blue people in the hills and hollows around Troublesome and Ball Creeks. Faris, David. They are known for being carriers of a genetic trait that led to the blood disorder methemoglobinemia, causing the skin to appear blue. Benjy Stacy is one of the last of the blue Fugates. "That's crazy.". Chapter 1: The Climate of Post-War America Chapter 2: West Virginia - The Violent Heritage Chapter 3: Political Maneuvering Chapter 4: The Creative Act of 1919 Chapter 5: Getting Organized PART II Chapter 6: The Mine Wars, 1919-1929 Chapter 7: Depression and Recovery, 1929-1939 Chapter 8: War Service, 1939-1949 Answer (1 of 3): Depends on what you mean by blue. All he needed was a substance that could "donate" a free electron to the methemoglobin, allowing it to bond with oxygen. The antidote worked quickly but patients were required to take daily doses as it passed quickly through the urine. Between 1880 and 1920, southern West Virginia's population grew from 93,000 to 446,000, due almost entirely to the coal industry. Where people have deer horns on their hoods. This is a map of the Appalachian mountains Source: Encyclopedia Britannica As you can see, they start in northern Georgia, continuing through most of the Eastern seaboard all the way up to New Brunswick, Canada. 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. Days of testing provided no answers; but then Benjy's grandmother told the doctor a story about the "blue" Fugates. Scott also concluded that the condition was inherited as a simple recessive trait. Most of the Fugates lived long and healthy lives. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. When Two Strangers Lost the Genetic Lottery, Special Offer on Antivirus Software From HowStuffWorks and TotalAV Security, Human Genetics: Concepts and Applications, reactions to certain topical pain relievers. 1:52. She was a sister to one of the Fugate women. About this same time, another of the blue Combses, named Luke, had taken his sick wife up to the clinic at Lexington. Tulane Breakout Room Reservation, After concluding that there was no evidence of heart disease, I said Aha! I started asking them questions: Do you have any relatives who are blue? then I sat down and we began to chart the family., Cawein remembers the pain that showed on the Ritchie brothers and sisters faces. 8 November 2021. A reference to "the Huntsville subgroup" is made in the American version of television sitcom Shameless when Kevin Ball (played by Steve Howey) discovers that he may have ancestors from that group.[10]. John Stacy still lives on Lick Branch of Ball Creek. Most of the Fugates lived long and healthy lives. type to search . 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. .recentcomments a{display:inline !important;padding:0 !important;margin:0 !important;}function setREVStartSize(e){ So I knew we had the defect defined.. 1995-2022 Ancestral Findings, LLC. One relative describes her as blue all over, and another calls Luna the bluest woman I ever saw.. After ruling out heart and lung diseases, the doctor suspected methemoglobinemia, a rare hereditary blood disorder that results from excess levels of methemoglobin in the blood. Scott, E.M. The relation of diaphorase of human erythrocytes to inheritance of methemolglobinemia, Journal of Clinical Investigation, 39, 1960.3. The Fugate family of Kentucky has been known for their blue skin color for generations. 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.. Stumped, the doctor turned to the medical literature for a clue. Written family records do not indicate Martin's skin color, but family legend says he was blue. If the blue people did have methemoglobinemia, the next step was to find out the cause. In other words, to get the disorder, a person would have to inherit two genes for it, one from each parent. What Happened to the Blue People? He injected the Ritchie siblings with 100 milligrams of the blue dye and didn't have to wait long to see results. It was really something exciting to see.. In more recent memory, the 2003 film Wrong Turn helped perpetuate the inbreeding stereotype. 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. score: 5 of 27 (18%) required scores: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 list stats leaders vote Vote print comments. Of their seven children, four were reported to be blue. Incredibly, Benjy had inherited a gene dating back over 162 years! They were really embarrassed about being blue, he said. Folklore maintained the Fugates were blue due to heart disease or lung problems. Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this HowStuffWorks.com article: Dave Roos 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. A fellow by the name of John E. Stacy spotted Luna at Sunday services of the Old Regular Baptist Church back before the century turned. Elizabeth had pale white skin, almost translucent. Plus, we thought why not add in a few stereotypes? In another neighborhood of this rust-belt city of 46,000, Pam and Ted Keesee have their own. Some 14,000 years ago Native American hunters entered the Ohio and Kanawha valleys in pursuit of mammoths. West Virginia is one of the nation's most rural states, with 77 people per square mile. Scott's research had found hereditary methemoglobinemia among Alaskan Eskimos and Indians caused by an absence of the enzyme diaphorase from their red blood cells. As a bonus, theres a Golden Corral, several Dollar Stores and many Waffle Houses in the area. Where is this area located in eastern KY? Cawein eventually found a small population of people in the back woods of Appalachia, many with a blue skin disorder. One of em I remember seeing him when I was just a boy Blue Anze, they called him. So close! Bessie had an iron pot of clothes boiling in her front yard, but she graciously allowed the doctor to draw some of her blood. 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. 39, 1960) that the answer began to emerge. Jaculatorias A San Antonio De Padua, Most of them old people went by that name the blue Fugates. Enormous genetic complexity results in much individual variation. There was always speculation in the hollows about what made the blue people blue: heart disease, a lung disorder, the possibility proposed by one old-timer that their blood is just a little closer to their skin. But no one knew for sure, and doctors rarely paid visits to the remote creekside settlements where most of the blue Fugates lived until well into the 1950s. Rednecks are hailed as being great in our song lyrics. blue people of west virginiaspot vs pinfish. Patrick was all hunched down in the hall. RAYLAND, Ohio (WTRF) A house fire in Rayland over the weekend has been deemed an arson fire by the State Fire Marshal's office. Tests for abnormal hemoglobin were negative. Lunas father, Levy Fugate, was one of Zachariah Fugates sons. She told me that her family was the blue Combses who lived up on Ball Creek. Cawein is no stranger to eccentricities of the body. One day, one of the older mountain men cornered the doctor. The bluest Fugates I ever saw was Luna and her kin, says Carrie Lee Kilburn, a nurse who works at the rural medical center called Homeplace Clinic. the blue color was gone from their skin, the doctor said. yes, saw that years ago, colloidal silver, damn asshole medias, just state facts, you can prove., thanks for this honest reply. 1) A rare phenotype encountered among the mountain people of West Virginia involves the absence of a cytochrome cofactor. New Martinsville is located in the northwestern part of the state, right on the Ohio state line. It is documented that Fugates were born in the colonies in the mid 1600's but the original progenitor has not been confirmed. Definitely not a poaching bunch, these Hurricane rednecks. You Will Own Nothing And Be Happy Origin, 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. So close! Well, as you can imagine, I really examined them. Oxygen, or a lack of oxygen, is what turns the blood from red to blue in people with methemoglobinemia. In 2014, the lowest-cost bronze plan in the WV exchange was an average of $280/month, higher than the national average of $249. if(e.responsiveLevels&&(jQuery.each(e.responsiveLevels,function(e,f){f>i&&(t=r=f,l=e),i>f&&f>r&&(r=f,n=e)}),t>r&&(l=n)),f=e.gridheight[l]||e.gridheight[0]||e.gridheight,s=e.gridwidth[l]||e.gridwidth[0]||e.gridwidth,h=i/s,h=h>1?1:h,f=Math.round(h*f),"fullscreen"==e.sliderLayout){var u=(e.c.width(),jQuery(window).height());if(void 0!=e.fullScreenOffsetContainer){var c=e.fullScreenOffsetContainer.split(",");if (c) jQuery.each(c,function(e,i){u=jQuery(i).length>0?u-jQuery(i).outerHeight(!0):u}),e.fullScreenOffset.split("%").length>1&&void 0!=e.fullScreenOffset&&e.fullScreenOffset.length>0?u-=jQuery(window).height()*parseInt(e.fullScreenOffset,0)/100:void 0!=e.fullScreenOffset&&e.fullScreenOffset.length>0&&(u-=parseInt(e.fullScreenOffset,0))}f=u}else void 0!=e.minHeight&&f
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