Spring potpourri
4 months ago
Originally posted at Hillbilly Savants by Eric D. Smith
Lorenzo & Eleanor Fugate
Lorenzo & Eleanor FugateAround the world there are legends of human beings who have skin of a unusual shades, folk whose skin color wasn't some variation on brown or pink. These people, as they are remembered by their neighbor's descendants, were usually of a supernatural ilk - elves or gods or some other genre of sentient being. More often than not, these legends have been explained in our oh-so-enlightened civilization as the product of imaginative storytellers, bad translations, and artistic flourishes. Yet, in the relatively recent past, in the hills of eastern Kentucky, there was a clan of folk who seem to have shared a genetic anomaly that, in effect, rendered them blue.(Image from Hazard, Kentucky &
Perry County: A Photographic History)
That's right blue.
Okay, well, maybe not entirely blue - but definitely a blueish tint.
Let me explain. Once, not so long ago, the only blue men I'd ever heard of were an off-Broadway-to-Vegas post-modern performance group featured repeatedly on the late, great Arrested Development. Then, say, two days ago, I got on a certain search engine and did a blog search for recent entries that specifically included the words "West Virginia." Well, as I scrolled through, just looking for pieces of interest, I came upon a site which, as luck would have it, is an old friend of ours at HS, a site better known for its political writing than its anthropological such have yous - West Virginia Blue. The entry was on the blue men, not of West Virginia, but of the Mountain State's neighbor, Kentucky, and it focused primarily on an article published in Science way back in 1982 - you can find that article here, but I want to quote a couple points for you.
Madison Cawein began hearing rumors about the blue people when he went to work at the University of Kentucky's Lexington medical clinic in 1960. "I'm a hematologist, so something like that perks up my ears," Cawein says, sipping on whiskey sours and letting his mind slip back to the summer he spent "tromping around the hills looking for blue people."Okay - that is only a slice of the article - - - you should really read the entire bit, frankly - it'll be well worth your time. When you've reached the end you'll understand why, even with diligent searches of the internet, you're unlikely to find many pictures of blue men or women, Kentuckian or otherwise - because those people affected with this genetic anomaly (I won't call it a defect or even a handicap, because I haven't read of any disabling physiological effects) fear, quite logically, that society would drag them out for public exposition. It is sad, really - a physical trait that could add to someone's uniqueness has had to be hidden out of fear that it will be exploited by the foulest pimps of the entertainment and yellow journalism - both printed and video tabloids. Indeed, I find it interesting that most of those folks interacting with the blue Fugates blame the geography of east Kentucky alone for their genetic inbreeding - I can't remember that any of them make the connection between their hesitancy to leave their family connections and the fact that these people, rational beings all, knew how they would be insulted, feared, abused, and most likely, very, very lonely. Ah well.
Cawein is no stranger to eccentricities of the body. He helped isolate an antidote for cholera, and he did some of the early work on L-dopa, the drug for Parkinson's disease. But his first love, which he developed as an Army medical technician in World War II, was hematology. "Blood cells always looked so beautiful to me," he says.
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 he'd heard rumors about. The American Heart Association had a clinic in Hazard, and it was there that Cawein met "a great big nurse" who offered to help.
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.
"She had been out in the cold and she was just blue!" recalls Pendergrass, who is now 69 and retired from nursing. "Her face and her fingernails were almost indigo blue. It like to scared me to death! She looked like she was having a heart attack. I just knew that patient was going to die right there in the health department, but she wasn't a'tall alarmed. She told me that her family was the blue Combses who lived up on Ball Creek. 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. One look at Luke was enough to "get those doctors down here in a hurry," says Pendergrass, who joined Cawein to look for more blue people.
Trudging up and down the hollows, fending off "the two mean dogs that everyone had in their front yard," the doctor and the nurse would spot someone at the top of a hill who looked blue and take off in wild pursuit. By the time they'd get to the top, the person would be gone. Finally, one day when the frustrated doctor was idling inside the Hazard clinic, Patrick and Rachel Ritchie walked in.
"They were bluer'n hell," Cawein says. "Well, as you can imagine, I really examined them. 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 brother's and sister's faces. "They were really embarrassed about being blue," he said. "Patrick was all hunched down in the hall. Rachel was leaning against the wall. They wouldn't come into the waiting room. You could tell how much it bothered them to be blue."
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. Methemoglobin which is blue, is a nonfunctional form of the red hemoglobin that carries oxygen. It is the color of oxygen-depleted blood seen in the blue veins just below the skin.
If you're interested, I have a few more links for you - not a ton, but enough to keep your eyes moving for a few minutes at least. . . consider:
The Radford University Geography Blog entry on "The Blue People of Kentucky"
The Straight Dope's "Is There Really a Race of Blue People?"
Wikipedia on "Methmoglobinemia"
blue+Fugates blue+family+Kentucky appalachia appalachian+culture appalachian+history history+of+appalachia
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You have been selected for a Thinking Blogger Award and so named in a post at Hill Country of Monroe County at http://hillcountryofmonroecountry.blogspot.com/2007/06/ive-been-tagged.html
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Terry Thornton said...
3:19 PM
Love your blog - as an appalachian girl, I just love to see anything like this.
One thing - the Rufus Fugate that Mary Brewer mentions is not one of the "blue Fugates." I tell you this with confidence, because he lives not a mile up the road from me, and I have gone to church with him all my life!
Keep doing what you are doing... this is just beautiful...
Anonymous said...
1:42 AM
I've removed the link between the Mary Brewer article and this article. Thanks for pointing that out!
Dave Tabler said...
8:31 AM
I am a decendent of the Sizemore's from Leslie & Clay counties in Kentucky. I have always heard mention of this disease as "Blue Sizemore" disease, to which my Grandmother had.
In her case, though dark complected (possibly of Melungeon descent) her skin had a light shade of purplish- blue with her lips and fingernails being a much more pronounced indigo blue color.
She had no side affects from this disorder, nor was she in any way ashamed.
If I can find photos that clearly show her unique coloring, I will post them. However, color photography will be difficult to find from the 1950's to 60's as it was not common until the late 60's in this part of the country.
Also, because of the dilution of bloodlines, I doubt any strong colors of blue would be found in the population at this time. Of her grandchildren, only one has any signs of "blueness".
Anonymous said...
1:49 PM
We'd love to see any color photos you'd care to share of Grandmother Sizemore! As you've pointed out, they're rare, and therefore treasured all the more.
Dave Tabler said...
2:06 PM
I used to use the Blue Fugate story in my Advanced Biology classes when we were studying genetics. The kids were always totally fascinated with this most unusual phenotype.
Greg Green said...
10:03 PM
I am a Fugate from Eastern Ky My brother and I when we were younger Would have a bluish tint to our skin when we were cold It was more prominient in our fingers and lips . I remember going swimming and when we would come out of the water we would be blue and our lips were dark blue
linda said...
8:51 PM
i am one of the blue fugates. my grandfather was thomas fugate married effie maggard fugate. they had 12 children one died. out of the 11 there are only 2 still living. one of thier sons french ' bitter doc' fugate was my father he married my mother who was born in buckorn(her morther was ella riley who married dewey mCIntosh). they later moved to hamilton, my father and mother had three chilren, ella louise fugate(me) dewey thomas fygate( now deceased) and frances ann fugate, fran was the only one of us who was born blue, she was imeditly given a blood transfusion, but we three would all still turn blue as can be when we get cold or angry. when my son was born he was blue. the dr. thought nothin about it in a few weeks he looked normal. he still will turn blue as can be when he gets cold or angry same with my daughter. so the blue still runs.
Anonymous said...
1:11 PM
My father was from Hazard, in fact, my Uncle still lives up in the mountains. I've always been curious about the family origins, over the years, I've heard different things, that we are irish, that we are french. However the blue fugates did get my attention. I agree with the other fellow Fugate comments here, about when getting cold, our skin does get a blue tint. Which back in school was somewhat embarrasing.
Fellow Fugate said...
3:44 AM