The afflicted were embarrassed about their condition and adamant about talking to Cawein. Then he began to construct the family genealogy and traced their roots back to Martin and Elizabeth Fugate. West Virginia Get facts and photos about the 35th state. Elizabeth Smith, apparently, was as pale-skinned as the mountain laurel that blooms every spring around the creek hollows. 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. Most of them old people went by that name the blue Fugates. It's a vote cast not just out of allegiance. One could inherit the gene, not get the blood disorder, but pass the gene on to a child. Eventually, Cawein gained their trust and began taking blood samples. Levels at or above 70% are considered life-threatening and are accompanied by erratic heartbeats and circulatory problems. Methemoglobinemia is one of the rare genetic conditions that's treatable with a simple pill. In 1980, a counter-intuitive solution was discovered where the blue person drinks a chemical-filled solution that is itself blue. Its post office is closed in 1935. But Cawein knew from earlier studies that the body has an alternative method of converting methemoglobin back to normal. He remembered that the Ritchie siblings "were really embarrassed about being blue." And by God, they didnt have the enzyme diaphorase. So, hold our beers and watch this. If youre analyzing smaller cities in West Virginia with blue collar workers, where people have lots of options for drinking, smoking, hunting and Walmarting, this is an accurate list. The last known "blue" Fugate descendant was born in 1975. 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. In other words, to get the disorder, a person would have to inherit two genes for it, one from each parent. 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. Little did they know that their union would create shades of blue people! One of them even married his own aunt, and most of them had a lot of children who also married their cousins. Levy married a Ritchie girl and bought 200 acres of rolling land along Ball Creek. Chasing Chains, LLC. When Eleanor Roosevelt visited West Virginia mining towns in the 1930s, national newspapers ran pictures of rundown shacks and barefoot kids in rags, which left a lasting impression of the state as a backwater. 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. Of their seven children, four were blue. Blow your mind. 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). His two room log cabin sits in the middle of Laurel Fork Hollow. Woodburn Hall at West Virginia University in Morgantown (old gold and blue are the official University colors); photo by Swimmerguy269 on Wikipedia (use permitted with attribution / share alike). Cawein eventually found a small population of people in the back woods of Appalachia, many with a blue skin disorder. Despite those incredible odds, this is exactly what happened with the Fugates. When they settled this country back then, there was no roads. 2 The reasons for this almost have to do entirely with coal. 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. Funding was made available through a $75 million facilities bond, $25 million in private donations through the Mountaineer Athletic Club and $6 million from West Virginia's multimedia rights contract with IMG. The blood disorder is inherited as a simple recessive trait - meaning that to get the disorder, a person would have to inherit two genes, one from each parent. This information supplied by John Graves whose uncle was the father of the child. Luna has been dead nearly 20 years now, but her widower survives. Finding it ridiculous herself, the Informant told me that she still enjoys being a part of the joke. It is the color of oxygen-depleted blood seen in the blue veins just below the skin. He found references to methemoglobinemia dating to the turn of the century, but it wasnt until he came across E. M. Scotts 1960 report in the Journal of Clinical Investigation (vol. astounding ignorance toward his own countrymen, [are neither] unique [n]or particularly common to the region. The inbreeding caused the recessive gene to appear in both parents. As travel became easier, more people moved into and out of the Fugates area of Kentucky, including some actual Fugates. Regardless, this place might be the whitest, redneckest of them all. Bluefield State is committed to being the region's leading institution of higher education. Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this HowStuffWorks.com article: Dave Roos They were real, and they really were blue, thanks to a recessive genetic condition. The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. Martin and Elizabeth had seven children, four of whom were blue; the recessive gene meant there was a 25 percent chance of each pregnancy resulting in a blue child. It was caused, Scott speculated, by an absence of the enzyme diaphorase from their red blood cells. It can make a claim that it should top this list, since it has the most people. 20 Fine Arts Drive, Morgantown, WV 26506. https://artmuseum.wvu.edu. Patrick and Rachel Ritchie, who lived in Hardburly, were also blue. With Fugate blood on both his mothers and his fathers side, the boy could have received genes for the enzyme deficiency from either direction. West Virginia's House congressional districts run from east to west, creating a three-way split that fractures pockets of blue support in the far northern and southwestern parts of the state . The company's principal address is Tuckers Run Rd . 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 . Dennis 4 Comments. The Derby Bar & Grill, Fairmount, WV. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. there is no "blue-soloution" that turns them back to a "normal" color. However, only 89% are white, and a whopping 83% finished high school. Well, there are more intriguing blue things in Kentucky than just the moon. 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. The American Heart Association had a clinic in Hazard, and it was there that Cawein met a great big nurse who offered to help. It's also, in part, out of fear. It is bordered by Pennsylvania to the north, Maryland and Virginia to the east, Kentucky to the southwest, and Ohio to the northwest. RoadSnacks is reader-supported. The only thing Stacy cant or wont remember is that his wife Luna was blue. 2022 Science Classroom Teacher Resources. 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. Hearing this story and conducting some research of my own led me to believe that people love to come up with their explanation for things they cannot explain, no matter how perplex. West Virginia History Timeline. 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. The Fugate family of Kentucky has been known for their blue skin color for generations. But as Kentucky became more populated and more genes came into the Fugate family tree, there were far fewer children born blue. Answer (1 of 3): Depends on what you mean by blue. Incredibly, Benjy had inherited a gene dating back over 162 years! 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. Its 97% white, very blue collar, and there are lots of places to get guns, ammo and chew. Luna Stacy possessed the good health common to the blue people, bearing at least 13 children before she died at 84. In the Inuit communities, scientists had pinpointed the problem, a deficiency of an enzyme that converted methemoglobin to hemoglobin. The following piece was collected at a dinner table with a group of girls out celebrating a friends birthday. Rednecks are hailed as being great in our song lyrics. The gene is still around today but has now become statistically insignificant and there are no serious medical problems associated with it. Blue Man Group will rock your world. Cawein packed his black bag and rounded up Nurse Pendergrass for the big event. Blood is also likely to be a chocolate brown color instead of bright red in patients with methemoglobinemia. That iron atom binds with oxygen, which is how red blood cells circulate oxygen throughout the body. Before Cawein ended his study of the blue people, he returned to the mountains to patch together the long and twisted journey of Martin Fugates recessive gene. So is the Walmart factor, which is the number of Walmarts per person. 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. Its blue, and their people have always had blue skin because of all the intermarrying and incest. T he West Virginia senator Joe Manchin has emerged as one of the biggest stumbling blocks to the passing of Joe Biden's ambitious domestic agenda, declaring he will vote against a key voting. Which means lots of weekend warriors probably live here; its the families that have boats and who book nice family hunting trips. Archives of Internal Medicine, April, 1964.2. As coal mining and the railroads brought progress to Kentucky, the blue Fugates started moving out of their communities and marrying other people. Had you guys just ditched school even more, you might have won this whole thing. So, youd think people who are rednecks would be proud to be called a redneck. As it was, the Fugates stayed in the same area well into the 20th century. 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. One of the girls, the Informant, was discussing an upcoming trip to visit her brother at West Virginia University. Theres a debate as to what percentage of Hurricane is white. 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 ". He married a red-haired American named Elizabeth Smith who had a very pale complexion and their union formed a genetic mutation that resulted in their descendants being born with blue skin. He married Elizabeth Smith, who carried a recessive gene for a genetic condition called methemoglobinemia, which gives those who have it blue-toned skin, even though they are otherwise perfectly healthy. 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. '"He was almost purple,"' his father, Alva Stacy, recalls." Appearance: Blue grosbeaks are medium birds about 8 long, large, bright blue, with large silver bills, and chestnut wingbars. Princeton is located down on I-77, before you make the climb into Virginia. Due to all this inbreeding, there were a lot of blue people running around the backwoods of Kentucky. "She had been out in the cold and she was just blue!" recalls Pendergrass, who is now 69 and retired from nursing. *. 2,999 100 . My first reaction to this story was wondering whether there was a scientific reason, or condition perhaps, that acted as a precursor to this belief of a skin condition that was a result of incest. Since there werent any roads or trains near their small community, the kidswere married off to the only people who lived nearby: their cousins. At 30%, nausea, difficulty breathing, and an elevated heart rate start to appear. She had been out in the cold and she was just blue! recalls Pendergrass, who is now 69 and retired from nursing. There are other ways to get blue skin without inheriting it, though. You may now brag to your friends and share this endlessly on your Facebook walls. type to search . You might actually call Hurricane home of the rednecks with paychecks. Grafton has the highest percentage of its population that didnt finish high school. If their blood had a lower concentration of methemoglobin, they might only blush blue in cold weather, while people with higher concentrations of methemoglobin were bright blue from head to toe. All he needed was a substance that could "donate" a free electron to the methemoglobin, allowing it to bond with oxygen. This is redneck wonderland. She told me that her family was the blue Combses who lived up on Ball Creek. Population: 9,277High school graduation rate 73%Chew factor: 3Gun stores: 5th. 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. A mutated gene causes their bodies to build up a rare form of hemoglobin called methemoglobin that can't bond with oxygen. Normally diaphorase converts methemoglobin back to hemoglobin. Methemoglobin which is blue, is a nonfunctional form of the red hemoglobin that carries oxygen. avg. The entry was on the blue men, not of West Virginia, but of the Mountain State's neighbor, Kentucky, . Fear that more inflation will cost jobs. I just knew that patient was going to die right there in the health department, but she wasnt atall alarmed. 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 . And unleash your spirit. Matt Harvey Dan Cunningham was born Jan. 16, 1850, in Jackson County. 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. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. The Blue Ridge Mountains In West Virginia Were Named One Of The 50 Most Beautiful Places In The World We all know the Blue Ridge Mountains in West Virginia are stunning, and it's about time the rest of the world took notice. 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.) Fairmont is a short truck drive down from Morgantown. Buckhannon is a town thats 95% white, where 3 out of 10 people didnt graduate from high school. They lived in isolation and married the girl next door, even if they had the same last name, and consequently passed the gene on to many generations. I looked at other enzymes and nothing was wrong with them. The area was never. From a history of Perry County and some Fugate family Bibles listing ancestors, Cawein has constructed a fairly complete story. Elkins is way out in the middle of nowhere south of Morgantown, at the base of the Appalachians. the blue color was gone from their skin, the doctor said. Its true that, through the 19th century, transportation networks developed slowly in the rugged, westernmost portion of Virginia (incorporated as West Virginia in 1863). He tested first for abnormal hemoglobin, but the results were negative. 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%. As three bald and blue men explore our world, together we'll discover music, laughter and surprises at every turn. As scientists discovered in the 1960s, the mutation that causes the Smurf-like skin is carried by a recessive gene, and it takes two people with that same gene to produce a blue child. The enzyme eventually builds to normal levels in most children and to almost normal levels in those like Benjy, who carry one gene. Martin and Elizabeth had seven children, four of whom were "bright blue" according to Fugate family lore. 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