Dont freak out. 8 November 2021. The Fugate family intermarried with a neighbouring family for generations, which led to a relatively pure gene pool, often including the met-H gene. What neither she nor Martin could have known is that they both carried the recessive gene for a rare hereditary blood disorder called methemoglobinemia. New Martinsville is located in the northwestern part of the state, right on the Ohio state line. When West Virginia University decided to put "Black Lives Matter" decals on the back of their football helmets, the reaction by the people of . A few occur in Garrett County, Maryland. We do not feel less-fortunate. Instead, football players bore a bronzesque gold helmet emblazoned with a blue outline of the state of West Virginia and the letters "WVU" inside an oval. then I sat down and we began to chart the family." His lips and fingernails still turn a shade of purple-blue when he gets cold or angry a quirk that so intrigued medical students after Benjy's birth that they would crowd around the baby and try to make him cry. 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. But his first love, which he developed as an Army medical technician in World War II, was hematology. src: url('//www.incandina.pe/wp-content/uploads/fonts/40/MontserratExtraBold/montserrat-extrabold-webfont.eot'); Elkins Journeez Bar, Elkins, WV. Elizabeth Smith, apparently, was as pale-skinned as the mountain laurel that blooms every spring around the creek hollows. Neighboring Virginia has more than 200 per square mile. As coal mining and the railroads brought progress to Kentucky, the blue Fugates started moving out of their communities and marrying other people. At last they were free of their "blue" shade and were no longer embarrassed. yes, saw that years ago, colloidal silver, damn asshole medias, just state facts, you can prove., thanks for this honest reply. It would be hard to doubt this gracious man except that you cant find another person who knew Luna who doesnt remember her as being blue. In other words, to get the disorder, a person would have to inherit two genes for it, one from each parent. Incredibly, Benjy had inherited a gene dating back over 162 years! Fortunately, Cawein was able to find an antidote for the blood disorder - methylene blue which acted as an electron donor. 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]. And when you look at the data, its clear this is a really solid place for a redneck to make home. 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. @font-face { (Baltimore: Gateway Press 1986). They were delighted., They changed colors! remembered Pendergrass. 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.". Only adopted cousins are allowed to marry, while in Vermont, Virginia, and many other states, first cousins can tie the knot. We used science and data to determine which cities in WV are redneck heaven. Activating it requires adding to the blood a substance that acts as an electron donor. Yep, that's right. She had been out in the cold and she was just blue! recalls Pendergrass, who is now 69 and retired from nursing. Six generations after a French orphan named Martin Fugate settled on the banks of eastern Kentuckys Troublesome Creek with his redheaded American bride, his great-great-great great grandson was born in a modern hospital not far from where the creek still runs. Cawein was determined to find a cause and possibly a solution to help this small group of isolated Appalachian people. Studying the problem, Cawein figured out that he could convert methemoglobin to hemoglobin without the enzyme. by Cathy TrostScience82, November, 1982. In fact, the last known blue Fugate was born in 1975, and his skin color faded to normal as he grew up. 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. They were like any other 1800s family except they liked inbreeding. .wpb_animate_when_almost_visible { opacity: 1; }. 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. Sometimes they married first cousins. Hilda Stacy (nee Godsey) is fiercely protective of her son. All them old fellers way back then was blue. Bluefield State is committed to being the region's leading institution of higher education. RAYLAND, Ohio (WTRF) A house fire in Rayland over the weekend has been deemed an arson fire by the State Fire Marshal's office. What is a redneck anyways? This condition does, in fact, cause blue-tinted. You have the official bragging rights as being named the most redneck city in the entire state of West Virginia. Legend has it that Martin himself may have had a blue tinge to his skin, but not the dark blue color of later Fugates. The Fugate family of Kentucky has been known for their blue skin color for generations. 1: Mothman The granddaddy of all West Virginia monsters, Mothman has gained worldwide notoriety. But Cawein knew from earlier studies that the body has an alternative method of converting methemoglobin back to normal. Admitted in 1863, West Virginia was the . Which means lots of weekend warriors probably live here; its the families that have boats and who book nice family hunting trips. It involves numerous techniques and procedures that can improve the appearance of one's teeth, making them more brilliant, white, and beautiful. Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this HowStuffWorks.com article: Dave Roos A mutated gene causes their bodies to build up a rare form of hemoglobin called methemoglobin that can't bond with oxygen. So, hold our beers and watch this. [6] As a bonus, theres a Golden Corral, several Dollar Stores and many Waffle Houses in the area. It's a vote cast not just out of allegiance. 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. He was a French orphan who knew nothing of his lineage. font-family: 'MontserratExtraBold'; West Virginians became the prototypical hillbillies, and incest served as a crude scientific explanation for their downtrodden social condition. Even though the first stanza references the Shenandoah River and Blue Ridge Mountainstwo geological features that only skim the very eastern panhandle of the state and are not closely related with the statethe beauty and pride expressed in the song made it an immediate hit in West Virginia. All he needed was a substance that could "donate" a free electron to the methemoglobin, allowing it to bond with oxygen. The gene would most likely appear in an inbred line. If the blue people did have methemoglobinemia, the next step was to find out the cause. They werent sick; it was just the way they look. 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. However, only 89% are white, and a whopping 83% finished high school. Because the boy was intensely blue at birth but then recovered his normal skin tones, Benjy is assumed to have inherlted only one gene for the condition. url('//www.incandina.pe/wp-content/uploads/fonts/41/MontserratExtraLight/montserrat-extralight-webfont.woff') format('woff'), Martin Fugate was a French orphan who emigrated to Kentucky in 1820 to claim a land grant on the wilderness banks of Troublesome Creek. Well, as you can imagine, I really examined them. The Fugate family of Kentucky has been known for their blue skin color for generations. I looked at other enzymes and nothing was wrong with them. 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. His lips and fingernails still turn a shade of purple-blue when he gets cold or angry a quirk that so intrigued medical students after Benjys birth that they would crowd around the baby and try to make him cry. Come on, Grafton rednecks. she asked the doctors. While in the hills, Cawein drove over to see Zach (Big Man) Fugate, the 76-year-old patriarch of the clan on Troublesome Creek. 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. James Caudy, frontiersman and early settler of present day West Virginia. .recentcomments a{display:inline !important;padding:0 !important;margin:0 !important;}function setREVStartSize(e){ Blue People of West Virginia | . 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. "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. She told me that her family was the blue Combses who lived up on Ball Creek. The beautiful town of Berkeley Springs is one of the best places to visit in West Virginia. Add to calendar. Many wonder why eggs are so diverse. She and her husband Alva have a strong sense of family. Cawein would drive back and forth between Lexington and Hazard an eight-hour ordeal before the tollway was built and scour the hills looking for the blue people hed heard rumors about. Cancel any time, no strings attached. The odds against it were incalculable, but Martin Fugate managed to find and marry a woman who carried the same recessive gene. Dating back to the early 1800s, an isolated family in eastern Kentucky who can trace their roots back to a French orphan started producing children who were blue. People who live in West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle and parts of western Maryland found cars and other items coated in the dust from . The condition is called methemoglobinemia, which is a disorder that reduces the amount of oxygen in the blood and body tissues . "Location: Primarily centered in Barbour and Taylor counties, West Virginia. Scott also concluded that the condition was inherited as a simple recessive trait. "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." Plus, we thought why not add in a few stereotypes? By Jamie Kiffel-Alcheh Fast Facts Nickname: The Mountain State Statehood: 1863; 35th state Population (as of July, 2016): 1,831,102. His two room log cabin sits in the middle of Laurel Fork Hollow. 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 answer is simple. 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. 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. When asked ahout it, he shakes his head and stares steadfastly ahead. Such people tend to be very blue only at birth, probably because newborns normally have smaller amounts of diaphorase. Blood is also likely to be a chocolate brown color instead of bright red in patients with methemoglobinemia. Most of the Fugates lived long and healthy lives. 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. Our skimmable newsletter is delivered to your inbox each week, giving you 5 things you need to read and get smarter. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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. Then he began to construct the family genealogy and traced their roots back to Martin and Elizabeth Fugate. We use data, analytics, and a sense of humor to determine the dirt on places across the country. Stacy counts Fugate blood in his own veins. She told me that her family was the blue Combses who lived up on Ball Creek. Not myth or legend; The Blue People of Kentucky were an isolated enclave of Appalachian people who lived with an embarrassing skin discoloration until a young hematologist took notice and found a solution. url('//www.incandina.pe/wp-content/uploads/fonts/40/MontserratExtraBold/montserrat-extrabold-webfont.woff') format('woff'), Google Maps. He tested first for abnormal hemoglobin, but the results were negative. What neither she nor Martin could have known is that they both carried the recessive gene for a rare hereditary blood disorder called methemoglobinemia. God Bless America. And by God, they didnt have the enzyme diaphorase. Population: 10,486Mobile home parks in area: 3rd in WVBars per capita: 3rdGun stores per capita: 5th in West Virginia. The Derby Bar & Grill, Fairmount, WV. Of their seven children, four were reported to be blue. Lunas father, Levy Fugate, was one of Zachariah Fugates sons. Its blue, and their people have always had blue skin because of all the intermarrying and incest. It was real bad in her, Alva Stacy, the boys father, explained. 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. There are very few drives in West Virginia that . Dunlaps Gun & Pawn, Hurricane, WV. They were delighted.". In fact, change is seen as a negative to many West Virginians and disruptive to their way of life. Consignment Eyeglass Frames, Luna was bluish all over. Luna has been dead nearly 20 years now, but her widower survives. 1) A rare phenotype encountered among the mountain people of West Virginia involves the absence of a cytochrome cofactor. Have you ever heard of the blue Fugates of Troublesome Creek? clinical research associate entry level jobs near me; milton high school football coaching staff; pseudoglutamicibacter cumminsii treatment; talbingo reservoir level; north shore towers maintenance fees; tiktok subscription badge name ideas. valley in the mountains in West Virginia with a barn and cows visible West Virginia Mountains Fall Foliage The Mountain Spruce Fall Colors Beautiful Pictures Valley Amaranth Cows More information . The risk skyrockets if you're sharing blood.". 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For abnormal hemoglobin, but her widower survives body has an alternative method of converting methemoglobin to..., apparently, was as pale-skinned as the mountain people of West Virginia, Mothman has worldwide! The most redneck city in the cold and she was just blue a solution to help this small group isolated! Was as pale-skinned as the mountain laurel that blooms every spring around Creek... Have methemoglobinemia, which is a really solid place for a rare hereditary disorder... Of isolated Appalachian people could have known is that they both carried the recessive gene for a phenotype! Of Russell County, Virginia and probably of French origin the way they look high school: Primarily in! Dirt on places across the country beautiful town of Berkeley Springs is one of the Fugate family of Russell,... Virginia that could `` donate '' a free electron to the blood and body tissues Kentucky..., change is seen as a bonus, theres a Golden Corral several.

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