Eventually, the recessive gene began to disappear once coal mining and the railroad opened the community to outsiders. 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 . In 1980, a counter-intuitive solution was discovered where the blue person drinks a chemical-filled solution that is itself blue. Yes, West Virginia is among the poorest if not the poorest state in the union as well as one of the most uneducated and least economically developed. 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. Dunlaps Gun & Pawn, Hurricane, WV. How far from Flatwoods , ky? 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. 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. West Virginia had just one carrier in its exchange in 2015 - Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield - although the carrier only offered 12 plans in 2014, and bumped that up to 14 in 2015. When Benjamin "Benjy" Stacy was born in 1975, nurses and doctors were shocked and confused. 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. Methemoglobin which is blue, is a nonfunctional form of the red hemoglobin that carries oxygen. 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. 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. Studying the problem, Cawein figured out that he could convert methemoglobin to hemoglobin without the enzyme. He was a French orphan who knew nothing of his lineage. Its nothing.. Legend has it that Martin himself may have had a blue tinge to his skin, but not the dark blue color of later Fugates. She remembers the story very easily, most often humorously, because she remembers the manner in which her brother told her. All them old fellers way back then was blue. She shuns modern conveniences. The female's primary color is light cinnamon with darker-colored wings. It is documented that Fugates were born in the colonies in the mid 1600's but the original progenitor has not been confirmed. Some of the blue people thought the doctor was slightly addled for suggesting that a blue dye could turn them pink. Luna is buried at the top of the hollow. Rattini is accused of distributing narcotic painkillers illegally to more than 200 pharmacies across West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee. In the early 1960's, this blue malady caught the attention of Madison Cawein, an inquisitive hematologist from the University of Kentucky. 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. It has nothing to do with melanin, the amino acid that gives people darker skin tones. Google Maps. Chasing Chains, LLC. 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.. 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. Cawein was determined to find a cause and possibly a solution to help this small group of isolated Appalachian people. And shop at Walmart. Admitted to the union as the 35th state in 1863, it is a relatively small state. "The beginning of this story is so wild because Martin moved to Kentucky from Europe and married a complete stranger, a nonrelative who just happened to have the same mutation," says Lewis. A transfusion was being prepared when Benjys grandmother spoke up. It was hard to get out, so they intermarried, says Dennis Stacy, a 51-year-old coal miner and amateur genealogist who has filled a loose-leaf notebook with the laboriously traced blood lines of several local families. Of their seven children, four were blue. There are even video games about rednecks. Her face and her fingernails were almost indigo blue. The antidote worked quickly but patients were required to take daily doses as it passed quickly through the urine. The doctor gave each blue family a supply of methylene blue tablets to take as a daily pill. Whoo-whee, New Martinsville! valley in the mountains in West Virginia with a barn and cows visible Stephanie Pittman 561 followers More information Blue People of West Virginia | . Regardless, this place might be the whitest, redneckest of them all. 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. Some sources claim their are no blue . Houses belonging to people that lived in the valley were mostly torn down. At last they were free of their "blue" shade and were no longer embarrassed. And a sense that President . Martin and Elizabeth had seven children, four being born blue; Zachariah, who was blue, married his mother's sister. Google Maps. It seems as if this area is generally, more wealthy than the other cities on this list. In the 1880s and 1890s, writers such as Mary Noailles Murfree and John Fox Jr. traveled across Appalachia, looking for local color, and overstated the degree to which mountain populations lived in isolation. Elizabeth Smith, apparently, was as pale-skinned as the mountain laurel that blooms every spring around the creek hollows. 15,898 100 A Cinephile's Guide to Biographical Films. Explainer thanks Edwin Arnold of Appalachian State University, Anthony Harkins of Western Kentucky University, and David Hsiung of Juniata College. The Faces of Appalachia. Bessie had an iron pot of clothes boiling in her front yard, but she graciously allowed the doctor to draw some of her blood. They were real, and they really were blue, thanks to a recessive genetic condition. Only adopted cousins are allowed to marry, while in Vermont, Virginia, and many other states, first cousins can tie the knot. While the substance isn't harmful, large amounts of it will tint any tissue that has blood flowing to it a blue color. New Martinsville is located in the northwestern part of the state, right on the Ohio state line. Genetic Causes The enzyme eventually builds to normal levels in most children and to almost normal levels in those like Benjy, who carry one gene. 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. That was the pain of being blue in a world that is mostly shades of white to black. However, only 89% are white, and a whopping 83% finished high school. the blue color was gone from their skin," Cawein said. Theyre known simply as the blue people in the hills and hollows around Troublesome and Ball Creeks. From a history of Perry County and some Fugate family Bibles listing ancestors, Cawein has constructed a fairly complete story. 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.. Read on below to see where your town ranked. Set in West Virginia, it features cannibalistic mountain men, horribly disfigured from generations of incest. It is bordered by Pennsylvania to the north, Maryland and Virginia to the east, Kentucky to the southwest, and Ohio to the northwest. 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. I looked at other enzymes and nothing was wrong with them. This led to the propagation of the genetic condition that gave them their distinctive blue skin color. When West Virginia University decided to put "Black Lives Matter" decals on the back of their football helmets, the reaction by the people of . 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. The number of tobacco stores per capita (we call it the chew factor) is the highest in West Virginia here in Charles Town. It was later discovered ascorbic acid can do this, as well. Excise tax on bottled soft drinks, syrups and dry mixtures; disposition thereof. Because of the dispersion of fluids, the solution only lasts for about a day so the carrier would have to drink a serving every day. As it was, the Fugates stayed in the same area well into the 20th century. 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. Once he had the enzyme deficiency isolated, methylene blue sprang to Caweins mind as the perfectly obvious antidote. Archives of Internal Medicine, April, 1964.2. Answer (1 of 3): Depends on what you mean by blue. Elkins Journeez Bar, Elkins, WV. Some sites say 100%. If theyd immigrated to other areas, even other areas of Kentucky, they likely would have married non-relatives, and the condition would have faded out of the family long before it did. Martin and Elizabeth had seven children, four being born blue; Zachariah, who was blue, married his mother's sister. Art Museum of West Virginia University, McGee Gallery View map. But Cawein knew from earlier studies that the body has an alternative method of converting methemoglobin back to normal. Blue skin. Fortunately, Cawein was able to find an antidote for the blood disorder - methylene blue which acted as an electron donor. 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. I'm going to assume that by blu. Some say 99%. Tests for abnormal hemoglobin were negative. Dont freak out. She and her husband Alva have a strong sense of family. 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. 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. The gene is still around today but has now become statistically insignificant and there are no serious medical problems associated with it. 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. Since there werent any roads or trains near their small community, the kidswere married off to the only people who lived nearby: their cousins. By. In fact, change is seen as a negative to many West Virginians and disruptive to their way of life. 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 Appalachian region of the US is a beautiful place with a rich and sometimes tragic history. 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. 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 began whenMartin Fugate, aFrench orphan, settled on the banks of eastern Kentuckys Troublesome Creek to claim a land grant in the early 19th century. 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. Fugates married other Fugates. Due to the sheer number of things like bait shops, bars and mobile home parks in the area, its definitely crawling with rednecks. Most of the Fugates didnt seem to mind being blue. 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. Upon discovering the blue members of the Fugate family were perfectly healthy in every other way, Cawein decided to try some experiments to see if the blue color could be treated. They have the 2nd most bars and the 2nd most trailer/mobile home parks per capita in the state. Inbreeding in eastern Kentucky has been turning offspring blue since the early 1880s. 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. Other people in the region knew the family well, and most were related to them, so seeing blue people and marrying them did not seem unusual to the locals. In people with methemoglobinemia, the skin appears blue because the veins beneath the skin are coursing with dark blue blood. So I brought back the new blood and set up my enzyme assay, Cawein continued. Is there anything really wrong with being called a West Virginia redneck? Meghan. 5,600 views made by Rocco. get your facts straight for petes sake. If youre curious enough, here are the least redneck places in West Virginia (if thats even possible): We aim to deliver infotainment about where you live that your real estate agent won't tell you. 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. They were poor people, concurs Nurse Pendergrass, but they were good.References1. avg. They were bluern hell, Cawein says. 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 methylene blue he used on them is a dye a blue dye, ironically. 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). The search for blue people ensued. West Virginians became the prototypical hillbillies, and incest served as a crude scientific explanation for their downtrodden social condition. Fear that more inflation will cost jobs. As three bald and blue men explore our world, together we'll discover music, laughter and surprises at every turn. Cawein and his colleagues published their research on hereditary diaphorase deficiency in the Archives of Internal Medicine (April, 1964) in 1964. This publication also contains information on state and federal agencies; postal information; the Constitutions of the United States and West Virginia; and, considerable information on counties, municipalities and various organizations. The entry was on the blue men, not of West Virginia, but of the Mountain State's neighbor, Kentucky, . You could tell how much it bothered them to be blue.. The area was never. Steelworkers Damion Elkins, 50, right, and Edward Clonch, 43, left, in Huntington West Virginia. It can be brought on by several things: abnormal hemoglobin formation, an enzyme deficiency, and taking too much of certain drugs, including vitamin K, which is essential for blood clotting and is abundant in pork liver and vegetable oil. It is almost certain that Martin was a descendant of the Fugate family of Russell County, Virginia and probably of French origin. 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