Blue Fugates of Troublesome Creek

[MaNgO_gIrL_hErE]

A transfusion was being prepared when Benjy's grandmother spoke up. "Have you ever heard of the blue Fugates of Troublesome Creek?" she asked the doctors.

"My grandmother Luna on my dad's side was a blue Fugate. It was real bad in her," Alva Stacy, the boy's father, explained. "The doctors finally came to the conclusion that Benjy's color was due to blood inherited from generations back."

They're known simply as the "blue people" in the hills and hollows around Troublesome and Ball Creeks. Most lived to their 80s and 90s without serious illness associated with the skin discoloration.

Have you ever heard of this before? It's really interesting...In another post i have a link that mentions the green children of the banjos (human oddities), i know that each story has a different theory about the strange color of those people's skin, but i'm wondering if they are somehow related... LINK

[Blood Angel]

I'm interested in what blood type she/fugates is/are.

I'll bet £100 thats shes type Rh

[Magikman]

Here's an extension of the same site, Mango girl, that offers a nice collection of informative links at the bottom of the article.

CLICK HERE

[Dancing_Dumplings]

dunno if theres another post bout this...but my bio teacher showed this too us...

The Blue People of Troublesome Creek

Adapted from an article in Science 82, November 1982 by Cathy Trost

It all started over 6 generations ago after a French orphan named Martin Fugate claimed a land grant in 1820 and settled on the banks of eastern Kentucky's Troublesome Creek, with his red-headed American bride, the former Elizabeth Smith, whose skin was as pale as the mountain laurel that blooms every spring around the creek hollows. The Fugates had seven children, four were reported to be blue. The clan kept multiplying. Fugates married other Fugates. Sometimes they married first cousins. And they married the people who lived closest to them, the Combses, Smiths, Ritchies, and Stacys. All lived in isolation from the world, bunched in log cabins up and down the hollows, and so it was only natural that a boy married the girl next door, even if she had the same last name.

"When they settled this country back then, there was no roads. It was hard to get out, so they intermarried," says Dennis Stacy who counts Fugate blood in his own veins.

Martin and Elizabeth Fugate's blue children multiplied in this natural isolation tank. The marriage of one of their blue boys, Zachariah, to his mother's sister triggered the line of succession that would result in the birth, more than 100 years later of Benjy Stacy. When Benjy was born with purple skin, his relatives told the perplexed doctors about his great grandmother Luna Fugate. One relative described her as "blue all over" and another calls Luna "the bluest woman I ever saw". Luna's father, Levy Fugate, was one of Zachariah Fugate's sons. Levy married a Ritchie girl and bought 200 acres of rolling land along Ball Creek. The couple had 8 children, including Luna. A fellow by the name of John Stacy spotted Luna at Sunday services of the Old Regular Baptist Church before the turn of the century. Stacy courted her, married her, and moved from Troublesome Creek to make a living in timber on her daddy's land. John Stacy still lives on Lick Branch of Ball Creek. Stacy recalls that his father-in-law, Levy Fugate, was "part of the family that showed blue. All them old fellers way back then was blue. One of em - I remember seeing him when I was just a boy - Blue Anze, they called him. Most of them old people we by that name - the blue Fugates. It run in that generation who lived up and down Ball Creek".

"They looked like anybody else, cept they had the blue color," Stacy said.

"The bluest Fugates I ever saw was Luna and her kin," said Carrie Lee Kilburn, a nurse at the rural medical center called Homeplace Center. "Luna was bluish all over. Her lips were as dark as a bruise. She was as blue a woman as I ever saw."

Luna Stacy possessed the good health common to the blue people bearing at least 13 children before she died at 84. The clinic rarely saw her and never for anything serious.

Benjy Stacy was born in a modern hospital near Hazard, Kentucky, not far from Troublesome Creek. He inherited his father's lankiness and his mother's red hair but what he got from his great, great, great grandfather was dark blue skin! The doctors were astonished, not so the parents, but the boy was rushed off to a medical clinic in Lexington (University of Kentucky Medical School). Two days of tests showed no cause for Benjy's blue skin.

Benjy's grandmother Stacy asked the doctor's if they had heard of the blue Fugates of Troublesome Creek. Put on that track, they concluded that Benjy's condition was inherited. Benjy lost his blue tint within a few weeks and now he is about as normal a 7-year old boy as you might imagine. His lips and fingernails still turn a purplish blue when he gets cold or angry and that trait was exploited by the medical students back when Benjy was an infant.

thats just the intro more on the blue people can be found on....

This Site

a picture...well painting really of what the family might look like

[Barnacle Battlefront]

freaky

[Subtemperate]

Lucky gargamel wasn't around......

Blue people.... what next?

[GeneralBender]

oky doky

[seventh_son]

I think they recently moved to Florida! I'm pretty sure they live near me LOL

[man_in_mudboots]

i believe it.

[LittleIrishVampiress]

......really..???.............. Edited August 22, 2004 by LittleIrishVampiress

[Janiel]

hmmm...very interesting find, but wierd....

[Panthera leo atrox]

You'd think this would be easy enough to prove.

It was hard to get out, so they intermarried

good health common to the blue people

Huh??

[LisaMHD]

That story reminds me of The Little Green Children. I think they have been discussed on this forum before.

[cor_raven]

Ocky dokey i'll buy that

[Daughter of the Nine Moons]

Hmmm...I don't know what to make of that yet.

[absinthegreen329]

I did a search on this and turned up no results. So I thought I would post it here....

The Fugate Family

I think that is extremely interesting. I don't see why they would be ashamed of it, but then again, I am a bit of a freak. If my skin was like that, I would be proud. I could take the criticism, because it wouldn't change the fact that I was unique.

Edit: It appears that I have been merged.

Edited March 28, 2005 by absinthegreen329

[AztecInca]

Tis very interesting indeed and just a little freaky.................

[grimya]

Hmmm...I don't know what to make of that yet.

I am a descendant of the blue Fugate's. My grandfather was born in Hazard Kentucky. I also suffer from the "malady" and believe me, people like to make comments. When I'm cold my hands, nails, and lips turn a bright shade of indigo. I am also pale so it stands out quite a bit.

[grimya]

Hmmm...I don't know what to make of that yet.

I am a descendant of the blue Fugate's. My grandfather was born in Hazard Kentucky. I also suffer from the "malady" and believe me, people like to make comments. When I'm cold my hands, nails, and lips turn a bright shade of indigo. I am also pale so it stands out quite a bit.

[Lord Umbarger]

I hope that this is not though of as rude but, would you mind posting a picture of yourself? I've never heard of this. Just how blue are you/ others with this "malady"? Personally, I don't know why it would be viewed as a "malady" but, if that's what we're calling it. Also, I thinknthat it would be kind of cool. Just think of the stories that you could make up to tell the classmates!!

[ex infernis]

i know that silver salts can stain skin and it lasts for the rest of your life

[Yelekiah]

Just how blue are you

If I were blue, I don't think I could tolerate the "why so blue" questions. I tip my hat off to you, grimya.

[Lord Umbarger]

I'm sure that it would get old after a while but, if I woke up blue, I'd use it to meet the ladies! Move to a big city. You'll never be lonely again!

[grimya]

I hope that this is not though of as rude but, would you mind posting a picture of yourself? I've never heard of this. Just how blue are you/ others with this "malady"? Personally, I don't know why it would be viewed as a "malady" but, if that's what we're calling it. Also, I thinknthat it would be kind of cool. Just think of the stories that you could make up to tell the classmates!!

Well I have to admit, unless I'm cold, I'm not blue, just PALE.

http://www.geocities.com/grimya13/images/k...Jengagement.jpg

This is me with my husband. Now however there is a picture of the Fugate's from waaaaay back and they were BLUE - I'll see if I can find it, I think in my personal possesion I only have a black and white.

http://www.mc.uky.edu/ahec/skyahec/Image8.gif

Here is a posting of an email from Ben, the one the story centres around.

http://www.people.virginia.edu/~rjh9u/benstacy.html

And here is a page that discusses the "malady".

http://www.mc.uky.edu/ahec/skyahec/methem-CE.htm

[grimya]

If I were blue, I don't think I could tolerate the "why so blue" questions. I tip my hat off to you, grimya.

O ya, it get's old, the whole "Oh my god, what's wrong with you, why do your hands look like THAT!" It's my hands the really turn, under my fingernails and all. My grandfather who is the Fugate line doesn't have it at all I don't think.