blue people of west virginia

Population: 6,427High school graduation rate: 70%Bars per capita: 1st in WVMobile home parks per capita: 1st. They were really embarrassed about being blue, he said. 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). In fact, the last known blue Fugate was born in 1975, and his skin color faded to normal as he grew up. Feb. 22, 2012 -- Benjamin "Benjy" Stacy so frightened maternity doctors with the color of his skin -- "as Blue as Lake Louise" -- that he was rushed just hours after his birth in 1975 to . One could inherit the gene, not get the blood disorder, but pass the gene on to a child. Regardless, this place might be the whitest, redneckest of them all. 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.) Luna has been dead nearly 20 years now, but her widower survives. '"He was almost purple,"' his father, Alva Stacy, recalls." 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. A stance in favor of new abortion restrictions. The area was never. 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. Scott also concluded that the condition was inherited as a simple recessive trait. Stacy recalls that his father-inlaw, Levy Fugate, was part of the family that showed blue. By 1850, approximately half of Kanawha County's slaves worked in the salt industrymany mined coal to fuel the furnaces. In 1980, anthropologist Robert Tincher published a study titled Night Comes to the Chromosomes: Inbreeding and Population Genetics in Southern Appalachia, based on 140 years worth of marriage records. 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.. A transfusion was being prepared when Benjys grandmother spoke up. Grafton has the highest percentage of its population that didnt finish high school. Called methaemoglobinaemia (commonly known as met-H), the condition reduces the individuals ability to carry oxygen in their blood. All them old fellers way back then was blue. You could tell how much it bothered them to be blue.. But by 3 years old and . The reasons for this almost have to do entirely with coal. Martin and Elizabeth had seven children, four being born blue; Zachariah, who was blue, married his mother's sister. If enough blood is "infected" with this faulty type of hemoglobin, it changes from red to an almost purple-ish dark blue. Edit Old Gold & Blue Page Oh, and they had blue skin. Population: 18,763Bars per capita: 6th in West VirginiaFishing/bait shops per capita: 4thMobile home parks per capita: 5th. They wouldnt come into the waiting room. In 2014, the lowest-cost bronze plan in the WV exchange was an average of $280/month, higher than the national average of $249. The company's principal address is Tuckers Run Rd . Genetic Causes Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this HowStuffWorks.com article: Dave Roos They were bluern hell, Cawein says. I was actually born with my twin sisters fetus inside me. Hereditary diaphorase deficiency and methemoglobinemia. Cause, you know, rednecks like to hunt, drink, smoke and shoot things. 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. Activating it requires adding to the blood a substance that acts as an electron donor. Many substances do this, but Cawein chose methylene blue because it had been used successfully and safely in other cases and because it acts quickly. Rattini is accused of distributing narcotic painkillers illegally to more than 200 pharmacies across West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee. When young people started moving away from the farms surrounding Troublesome Creek in the mid-20th century, they took their recessive blue genes with them. It's also, in part, out of fear. In 2019, the percentage of foreign-born citizens in West Virginia was 1.66%, meaning that the rate has been decreasing. 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. Her face and her fingernails were almost indigo blue. I couldnt tell you what caused it.. The mystery behind the astonishing picture of the Fugates, which has been baffling people for years, appears to have finally been solved. Is there anything really wrong with being called a West Virginia redneck? avg. While not every Fugate child was born with the condition, as genes express themselves differently in different people, enough were that locals began to take notice. The Fugate family of Kentucky has been known for their blue skin color for generations. As the story goes, Martin Fugate, a French orphan, settled on the banks of eastern Kentucky's Troublesome Creek around 1820 to claim a land grant. It's a vote cast not just out of allegiance. 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. Stumped, the doctor turned to the medical literature for a clue. it is a blood disorder in which their blood does not oxygenate correctly. But as Kentucky became more populated and more genes came into the Fugate family tree, there were far fewer children born blue. The clan kept multiplying. We just have our own way of life. Meghan. Cawein, Madison, et. 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. Definitely not a poaching bunch, these Hurricane rednecks. 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. 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. Its blue, and their people have always had blue skin because of all the intermarrying and incest. There are even video games about rednecks. You have the official bragging rights as being named the most redneck city in the entire state of West Virginia. 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. For some, though, there was a pain not seen in lab tests. The only thing Stacy cant or wont remember is that his wife Luna was blue. 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. This genetic defect comes from a rare recessive gene, so most people arent affected by it unless they happen to reproduce with another person who carries it. Its common. One came from a blue Flugate whod joined the Army and been sent to Panama, where his son was born bright blue. There are still blue people around today, but some of them developed their blueness from ingesting colloidal silver. Admitted to the union as the 35th state in 1863, it is a relatively small state. The area was never entirely cut off, but many people lived in remote closed communities with little incoming or outgoing migration. One of em I remember seeing him when I was just a boy Blue Anze, they called him. 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. Have you ever heard the song, Blue Moon of Kentucky? Its pretty well-known and popular. The distinct gold-and-blue color scheme and Flying WV logo we've come to adore did not exist at that point. 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. The entry was on the blue men, not of West Virginia, but of the Mountain State's neighbor, Kentucky, . The antidote worked quickly but patients were required to take daily doses as it passed quickly through the urine. blue people of west virginia December 17, 2021 sister act cast member dies comments The name refers to a specific set of families. Typically, the blue is isolated to one part of the body. What neither she nor Martin could have known is that they both carried the recessive gene for a rare hereditary blood disorder called methemoglobinemia. In the Inuit communities, scientists had pinpointed the problem, a deficiency of an enzyme that converted methemoglobin to hemoglobin. if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[580,400],'roadsnacks_net-medrectangle-3','ezslot_0',606,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-roadsnacks_net-medrectangle-3-0');Using that criteria, its not hard to scrape the internet, run some scientific data on where rednecks might live in West Virginia, and then put out a list. Methemoglobin levels over 50% may result in seizures, coma, and death. Give the gift of knowledge with our official 'did you know' book. 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.". Book is out of print, borrowed from Special Collections at the St. Louis County Library, St. Louis, MO. They were delighted.". While in the hills, Cawein drove over to see Zach (Big Man) Fugate, the 76-year-old patriarch of the clan on Troublesome Creek. Rachel was leaning against the wall. The entry was on the blue men, not of West Virginia, but of the Mountain State's neighbor, Kentucky, . 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. It can make a claim that it should top this list, since it has the most people. She has lived in the primitive dwelling without running water or electricity on the slopes of Dead Fall Mountain her entire life. 15,898 100 A Cinephile's Guide to Biographical Films. Our skimmable newsletter is delivered to your inbox each week, giving you 5 things you need to read and get smarter. THE town of Odd, West Virginia is a quiet, rural countryside, despite all the buzz surrounding the infamous inbred family, The Whittakers, who live within it. Theyre known simply as the blue people in the hills and hollows around Troublesome and Ball Creeks. In 1980, a counter-intuitive solution was discovered where the blue person drinks a chemical-filled solution that is itself blue. The gene is still around today but has now become statistically insignificant and there are no serious medical problems associated with it. *. Add to calendar. Population: 5,626High school graduation rate: 72%Gun stores per capita: 5th in WVFishing/bait per capita: 3rd in the state. One of them even married his own aunt, and most of them had a lot of children who also married their cousins. West Virginia's population has grown very slowly since the 1950s, at many times losing people . Zach took the doctor even farther up Copperhead Hollow to see his Aunt Bessie Fugate, who was blue. One of the girls, the Informant, was discussing an upcoming trip to visit her brother at West Virginia University. The Fugate family of Kentucky once lived in the isolated community of Troublesome Creek. The Fugate family intermarried with a neighbouring family for generations, which led to a relatively pure gene pool, often including the met-H gene. 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. Of their seven children, four were reported to be blue. Some of us finished high school and became the "dreaded wife and mother"-as society portrays it. West Virginia Get facts and photos about the 35th state. 3. Methemoglobinemia is a blood condition, not a skin condition. And a sense that President . Matt Harvey Dan Cunningham was born Jan. 16, 1850, in Jackson County. The gold of the helmet did not reflect the gold utilized in our colors today. H & S Sporting Goods, Princeton, WV. Most of the Fugates didnt seem to mind being blue. Benjamin Stacy was the last of the Fugate family members to have blue skin and lived a healthy life. Princeton is located down on I-77, before you make the climb into Virginia. Only adopted cousins are allowed to marry, while in Vermont, Virginia, and many other states, first cousins can tie the knot. But there around 10 or 15 Dollar Stores in the area. Benjy was a pretty big item in the hospital, his mother says with a grin. 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. However, the disorder didn't seem to cause any special health problems. By the time a young hematologist from the University of Kentucky came down to Troublesome Creek in the 1960s to cure the blue people, Martin Fugates descendants had multiplied their recessive genes all over the Cumberland Plateau. You couldve done even better than that. 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 doctor was recently approached by the producers of the television show Thats Incredible. They wanted to parade the blue people across the screen in their weekly display of human oddities. Had you guys just ditched school even more, you might have won this whole thing. Population: 10,486Mobile home parks in area: 3rd in WVBars per capita: 3rdGun stores per capita: 5th in West Virginia. The odds against it were incalculable, but Martin Fugate managed to find and marry a woman who carried the same recessive gene. People wore jackets and hats that had the slogan "Northfork West Virginia Basketball Capital of the United States." 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. 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. It is the color of oxygen-depleted blood seen in the blue veins just below the skin. Exaggeration-prone outsiders. Legend has it that Martin himself may have had a blue tinge to his skin, but not the dark blue color of later Fugates. It was painful. Many of us have college degrees, are nurses, teachers, preachers and well-educated women. Using Yelp and Google Maps, this is the criteria we used: Note: For the sake of getting reliable numbers, we counted places within a citys border, as well as within a short driving distance. "She had been out in the cold and she was just blue!" recalls Pendergrass, who is now 69 and retired from nursing. He was a French orphan who knew nothing of his lineage. If this conversion continued, all the bodys hemoglobin would eventually be rendered useless. 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. As a result, their blood is darker than the color typically found running through peoples veins. In people with methemoglobinemia, the skin appears blue because the veins beneath the skin are coursing with dark blue blood. Learn how your comment data is processed. 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. Luna was bluish all over. Luna is buried at the top of the hollow. Set in West Virginia, it features cannibalistic mountain men, horribly disfigured from generations of incest. The blueness increases with increasing methemoglobin levels. History Timeline of the Native Indians of West Virginia. 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. the blue color was gone from their skin, the doctor said. A lot of nice farmland was lost to the lake over the . We do not feel less-fortunate. However, only 89% are white, and a whopping 83% finished high school.