Some sources claim their are no blue . 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. 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. 1 talking about this. You may now brag to your friends and share this endlessly on your Facebook walls. 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. The reasons for this almost have to do entirely with coal. Google Maps. Laughing, the Informant launched into a story of the West Virginia Blue People, a story about a genetic condition the resulted from intermarriage. As a bonus, theres a Golden Corral, several Dollar Stores and many Waffle Houses in the area. Why can colloidal silver turn your skin blue? Lunas father, Levy Fugate, was one of Zachariah Fugates sons. This condition does, in fact, cause blue-tinted. Finding it ridiculous herself, the Informant told me that she still enjoys being a part of the joke. You have the official bragging rights as being named the most redneck city in the entire state of West Virginia. 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. It was real bad in her, Alva Stacy, the boys father, explained. In 1820, Martin Fugate, who is believed to have been blue, moved to Troublesome Creek from France and just happened to shack up with Elizabeth Smith, who also carried the gene. She remembers the story very easily, most often humorously, because she remembers the manner in which her brother told her. Excise tax on bottled soft drinks, syrups and dry mixtures; disposition thereof. valley in the mountains in West Virginia with a barn and cows visible Stephanie Pittman 561 followers More information Blue People of West Virginia | . 3. 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. Studying the problem, Cawein figured out that he could convert methemoglobin to hemoglobin without the enzyme. However, it has the ability to change the blue hemoglobin back to a normal color, and remove the blue tone from their skin almost instantly. Blow your mind. We use data, analytics, and a sense of humor to determine the dirt on places across the country. Today I have a healthy son/nephew who is slightly green in skincolor. It was almost purple, his father recalls. 10,000 BC: Paleo-Indian Era (Stone Age culture) the earliest human inhabitants of America who lived in caves and were Nomadic hunters of large game including the Great Mammoth and giant bison. Written family records do not indicate Martin's skin color, but family legend says he was blue. 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. No mention of his skin color is made in the early histories of the area, but family lore has it that Martin himself was blue. Methemoglobinemia is a rare hereditary blood disorder that results from excess levels of methomoglobin (metHb) in the blood. Scotts Alaskans seemed to match Caweins blue people. 2,999 100 . Martin Fugate, who was orphaned as a child in France, began the American Fugate clan. Have you ever heard of the blue people of Kentucky? 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. "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. 5 years ago when I was on a swingerparty she got pregnant with me. 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.. The condition that made the Fugates blue causes large amounts of methemoglobin (which is a blue type of hemoglobin) to circulate in the blood. 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. Well, there are more intriguing blue things in Kentucky than just the moon. 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. Levels at or above 70% are considered life-threatening and are accompanied by erratic heartbeats and circulatory problems. 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. Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this HowStuffWorks.com article: Dave Roos The inbreeding caused the recessive gene to appear in both parents. Generations later, a descendant of Martin Fugate, Benjy Stacy, would be born "blue". RoadSnacks is reader-supported. The story of an Appalachian malady, an inquisitive doctor, and a paradoxical cure. 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. By 1850, approximately half of Kanawha County's slaves worked in the salt industrymany mined coal to fuel the furnaces. 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. Stacy recalls that his father-inlaw, Levy Fugate, was part of the family that showed blue. Rattini is accused of distributing narcotic painkillers illegally to more than 200 pharmacies across West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee. Fortunately, Cawein was able to find an antidote for the blood disorder - methylene blue which acted as an electron donor. One of the girls, the Informant, was discussing an upcoming trip to visit her brother at West Virginia University. This then turns the carriers blood into a normal red hue which is then reflected in a change in skin tone. 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. The blueness increases with increasing methemoglobin levels. One came from a blue Flugate whod joined the Army and been sent to Panama, where his son was born bright blue. Where people wear camo to church. Edit Old Gold & Blue Page 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 Northfork High School "Blue Demons" were a force to be reckoned with from 1971 to 1984, setting national records including most consecutive state championships. March 8, 2012— -- Kerry Green was a "blue baby," born in 1964 in Tulsa, Okla., and his family was given little hope that he would live because of a malformed aorta. Book is out of print, borrowed from Special Collections at the St. Louis County Library, St. Louis, MO. Films That People Feel Guilty for Not Seeing. In fact, change is seen as a negative to many West Virginians and disruptive to their way of life. Ballengee testified in earlier civil depositions. Luna Stacy possessed the good health common to the blue people, bearing at least 13 children before she died at 84. In most people, there is an enzyme present called diaphorase that converts methemoglobin back into a usable form of hemoglobin. Major Occupational Groups in West Virginia ( Note --clicking a link will scroll the page to the occupational group): 00-0000 All Occupations 11-0000 Management Occupations 13-0000 Business and Financial Operations Occupations 15-0000 Computer and Mathematical Occupations 17-0000 Architecture and Engineering Occupations 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. 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). Google Maps. However, now that the Fugate gene pool is more diverse, there is less need for this treatment, as fewer blue children are being born. Laurel Wheeler and family, Buena Vista, Rockbridge County, Virginia. 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. They took the doctor to see their uncle, who was blue, too. One of them even married his own aunt, and most of them had a lot of children who also married their cousins. If the blue people did have methemoglobinemia, the next step was to find out the cause. 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. We just have our own way of life. There was a Zachariah Fugate who was married to a Mary Smith; both carried the gene which resulted in blue children. Of their seven children, four were blue. 1:52. You have the most bars and trailer parks per capita in the state, and your high school graduation rate is 70%. Cawein packed his black bag and rounded up Nurse Pendergrass for the big event. His car gave out on the dirt road to Zachs house, and the doctor had to borrow a Jeep from a filling station. On a hypothesis, he gave a substance called methylene blue to family members who were willing to take it. John Stacy still lives on Lick Branch of Ball Creek. 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. 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. Set in West Virginia, it features cannibalistic mountain men, horribly disfigured from generations of incest. Population: 7,164 Mobile home parks per capita: 2nd in West Virginia Bars per capita: 2nd in the state Walmart rank: 3rd Elkins is way out in the middle of nowhere south of Morgantown, at the base of the Appalachians. The Fugate familys condition caused the blue members to be missing that enzyme; because their methemoglobin couldnt be converted, large amounts of it built up in the blue Fugates, even before birth, causing a very obvious blue tone to their skin. Rednecks love to shoot their guns and fish, and there are a really high number of ammo stores and bait shops in the area, per person. People wore jackets and hats that had the slogan "Northfork West Virginia Basketball Capital of the United States." Add to calendar. 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. They wouldnt come into the waiting room. The small coal mining town in McDowell County received national attention. 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. Between 1880 and 1920, southern West Virginia's population grew from 93,000 to 446,000, due almost entirely to the coal industry. Normally diaphorase converts methemoglobin back to hemoglobin. Exaggeration-prone outsiders. The Wilson Family of West Virginia. ( Returnto the corrected sentence.). Stumped, the doctor turned to the medical literature for a clue. Madison Cawein began hearing rumors about the blue people when he went to work at the University of Kentuckys Lexington medical clinic in 1960. Days of testing provided no answers; but then Benjy's grandmother told the doctor a story about the "blue" Fugates. One relative describes her as blue all over, and another calls Luna the bluest woman I ever saw.. 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. Rednecks are hailed as being great in our song lyrics. Answer (1 of 3): Depends on what you mean by blue. West Virginia, constituent state of the United States of America. They were like any other 1800s family except theyliked inbreeding. The expedition descended that river to Peter's Falls on the future Virginia-West Virginia border and claimed for England all the land drained by the New River and its tributaries. Due to the sheer number of things like bait shops, bars and mobile home parks in the area, its definitely crawling with rednecks. 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 ZTF scans the entire Northern sky . We threw a lot of criteria at this one in order to get the best, most complete results possible. Population: 7,164Mobile home parks per capita: 2nd in West VirginiaBars per capita: 2nd in the stateWalmart rank: 3rd. Everyone knew the blue Fugates were healthy people. Chasing Chains, LLC. And a sense that President . then I sat down and we began to chart the family." Population: 5,626High school graduation rate: 72%Gun stores per capita: 5th in WVFishing/bait per capita: 3rd in the state. Benjy was a pretty big item in the hospital, his mother says with a grin. At 30%, nausea, difficulty breathing, and an elevated heart rate start to appear. Cawein got lucky when a brother and sister named Patrick and Rachel Ritchie walked into a Hazard County clinic. The American Heart Association had a clinic in Hazard, and it was there that Cawein met a great big nurse who offered to help. Eventually, the recessive gene began to disappear once coal mining and the railroad opened the community to outsiders. 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). They sing in the Stacy Family Gospel Band and have provided their children with a beautiful home and a menagerie of pets, including horses. What neither she nor Martin could have known is that they both carried the recessive gene for a rare hereditary blood disorder called methemoglobinemia. 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. Buckhannon is a town thats 95% white, where 3 out of 10 people didnt graduate from high school. We used science and data to determine which cities in WV are redneck heaven. And when you look at the data, its clear this is a really solid place for a redneck to make home. Incredibly, Benjy had inherited a gene dating back over 162 years! When Benjamin "Benjy" Stacy was born in 1975, nurses and doctors were shocked and confused. In another neighborhood of this rust-belt city of 46,000, Pam and Ted Keesee have their own. How far from Flatwoods , ky? 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. 15,898 100 A Cinephile's Guide to Biographical Films. H & S Sporting Goods, Princeton, WV. One of em I remember seeing him when I was just a boy Blue Anze, they called him. He knew the same thing was happening in this secluded corner of Appalachia. Ask the Explainer. 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. 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