The Blue People

Hi, I'm Holly. And I'm Hailey. Welcome to Mountain Mysteries, Tales from Appalachia. Welcome back.

Back in your living room. I don't know what I was going for there. That's okay. We're back.

We're back. We're back. And Hailey, do you smell that kind of like, does it smell like a maple syrup? It does.

And I couldn't figure out what it was. Yeah, you thought I'd made pancakes. You got excited and went, went, went. Sorry.

It's, yeah, it's the candle. It smells so good. It is called, so I got it Aldi. I love Aldi's candles.

I just love Aldi. I love it. So for $4.99, you get this giant candle and it's called Sunday brunch. And it smells like, like, syrup in the pancake.

Yeah, it's just like sweet. I'm not usually a sweet candle kind of gal. But that's, this one's good. I really like it.

I don't like it a lot. Because it's almost like, it's not overly sweet. It's very cold. Like, I just love it.

And it like, everybody comes in there like, have you even made pancakes? I know. It smells like it. And I'm going to die.

It's so we can't do the pancakes, whatever. I don't know. It'll be my cheat meal. Yeah, always.

All right. So we are headed to the winter of 1960. I'm excited about this one. And we are in Kentucky.

So, you know, as always, I'm going to tell you the number one of the songs, which was Teen Angel by Mark Dining. No. Teen Angel. Teen Angel.

Did you just get a guess? Will you be mine? Oh, yes. Creepy.

I mean, not if you're also a teenager. True. But was he a teen when he said? I don't know.

I know. I mean, if he was, yeah, yeah, that is true. I mean, if she was 19 and he was 21. Then we're good.

Then we're good. Then we're good. Even 18? Yeah.

We're good. Yeah. As it gets younger. Hey.

He was 16 and she was 16 or he was 21 and she was 19. That feels better. That feels good. Yeah.

Will you be mine? Okay. So we are going to a place called Hazard, Kentucky. Have you heard of this area?

We have a listener from Hazard, Kentucky. When I was looking up for last week's episode for a location shout out, I almost picked Hazard, Kentucky. That's because I was like, that's a crazy name and I love it. Kind of like raccoon.

Kind of like raccoon. I love it, which is also Kentucky. This is way deep in the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern part of Kentucky. So very far away from, for a long time, far away from anything, civilization, railroad.

A trip to the whole though. Oh my gosh. I've seen photos of it. It is spectacular.

It's so beautiful. So beautiful. So we have a nurse named Ruth Pindigrouse and she is working at the County Health Department. Okay.

So she comes in this morning and it's the winter so it's chilly and she starts her shift. Well, a woman walks in and the nurse looks up and notices that the woman is blue. Like from a cold? Well, you know, one would think that right.

But it's actually the tone of her skin. So her skin is blue. Her lips are blue. Her fingernails are blue.

So my first thought is lack of oxygen. Yeah, like she's about to die here on the floor. Yeah, like did she almost drown or something? I mean, she walked in so physically it doesn't seem like she was having some issues.

So instantly this nurse knows who and what this is. How? Okay. So there has been legend for a long time in this area about the blue people of Kentucky.

Okay. She had heard about them, but she had never actually seen someone who was blue. But there had been, for years, legends of these individuals who were called the blue people. Nobody knew how or why they were blue.

They were just told that they were blue. So she saw this blue person. So immediately she gets on the horn. She gets on the phone and she calls this doctor, Dr.

Colleen, or Colleen. I don't know exactly how you pronounce it. And she tells him, hey, I saw a blue person. Now this doctor is a hematologist and he works at the University of Kentucky Hospital.

He is absolutely fascinated by these blue people. I mean, he has one with me. I mean, he's heard about them and he has done nothing but kind of research. He is just so excited.

And here he's got this call from this nurse saying I saw somebody come in and he's thinking, oh my gosh, I may be able to meet some of these people and maybe even the let me do testing. We can kind of figure out what this is. So he decides he will set up camp at that county health department. So he does.

He sets up camp and he waits for a blue person hoping upon hope that someone will walk in. But real quick, I want to give you a little history about the blue people. Yeah, because it's a legend of the blue people here. So in 1820, a Frenchman who had been orphaned as a young child, he comes to an area of Kentucky called troublesome Creek, which the name is just funny.

Troublesome Creek is actually outside of hazard, Kentucky. Like I said, deep in the Appalachian mountains. And at this point, it is very remote. So I'm talking, I think I read that you would have to go 45 miles along Kentucky's North Fork River or take a two week treacherous hike across the mountains to kind of reach the next big city, like a civilization essentially.

So this was an area that was very remote, very isolated. And at this point, they don't have a railroad running through. So the only way that you were, and there's no cars, so the only way that you were going to make it to this area is to walk. So like I said, they're really living on the land and supported by each other.

There's just not a lot going on at this point, especially in 1820. So the Frenchman's name is Martin Fugate. Martin, while there, met and married a local woman. Her name was Elizabeth Smith.

She's described as small redheaded, freckled woman. The two settled near troublesome Creek and they end up having seven children. So many kids. Lots of kids.

But you had to have that many back in the day because like five of them were going to die, so you had to just keep going. And not just that, but you know, you had to have some options for the neighbors as far as, you know, kid, like, you know, to marry and procreate. Okay. Right.

So they ended up having seven children and multiple grandchildren. Well, because they were in a really rural secluded area, I mean, it's lucky for Elizabeth that the Frenchman came along, Martin. Oh, I don't like this one. The problem is their children and grandchildren didn't have those options.

So they started having to intermarry within their own family. I'm sure there was like, you know, probably four or five families in the area. And it was, this is such a sensitive topic, especially in this area because I know, like, outsiders and, I say outsiders like we're still descluded or not. But it's one of those like things where there's still rumors that like all mountain people are in red and, like, that's not true.

And like, that's, it's just ridiculous. I mean, yeah, a lot of people are in red because you don't have to live in the mountains. Right. Because there's not a thing that's just here.

Exactly. And it's usually like the result of trauma. It's like it's not a thing that people choose. Exactly.

Exactly. So a lot of this started happening in order to kind of keep the civilization going and you just didn't have any options. It wasn't like you could, you know, put on your profile, you know, single and ready to mingle. There were no profiles.

There were no profiles. Okay. So this is way back. Exactly.

And also this was a lot more accepted at this point. Well, I mean, the British did it forever. Exactly. And honestly, it wasn't like they were marrying their siblings.

It was like first cousins. Yeah. Which is like, I mean, how all like royal families were. Oh, exactly.

Because they had to keep the bloodline. Exactly. So by 1912, finally, a railroad system goes through this area. Finally.

So at that point, it's creating a lot more options for family members. So now, you know, they can go out a little bit more to see glove. Yes. Yes.

Yes. So it is believed that these individuals had a rare genetic disorder because I will tell you of the few gates of Martin and his wife Elizabeth. They had seven children, four of them were blue. The heck?

And once the Intermarion continued, they had more and more and more blue children. And so these were considered the few gates, the blue people of Kentucky. It just kind of hit the going. It just passed down and passed on.

Right. So the blue skin they feel was caused by some rare genetic disorder that coupled with the Intermarion caused the skin to be blue or have a blue hue to it. Well, and that's where like, I mean, in normal settings where you're not intermarion, jeans like that would be kind of weeded out. Right.

And so they didn't present themselves as much. And interestingly enough, they didn't have any health issues. So besides being blue, I mean, they didn't have any, it didn't seem. They had any complications associated with their blue skin.

But I will tell you that these individuals stayed pretty isolated because they were really embarrassed. I mean, if you think about it and you see someone who's blue just appear, wouldn't you be like, whoa, like, taken aback? It would be hard not to be kind of shocked by that. And they were very embarrassed.

So a lot of them just kept themselves, which makes me so sad. You know, like, they can't help this. So that's the history of it. Going back to the doctor who is at the clinic.

One day a couple come in, Patrick and Rachel Richie. They were both blue. Yeah. And now at this point, this is 1960.

So we're talking over a hundred years since the few gates. A hundred years of the skin is still being purple. Yes, this is 140 years and this is just keep going on and on. So they come into the clinic and he asks them, you know, do you feel comfortable with me examining you?

And he noted that the husband was kind of hunched over and, you know, really wouldn't leave the hallway. And the wife was kind of cowering. And it is because they were just really embarrassed and they were almost scared to come in. But they said, yes, you know, you can examine us.

So he does. And he realizes that there are no issues with heart or lung disease, which for a long time people were thinking, well, with blue, maybe it's related to your heart or the lungs. Or the oxygen. Exactly.

And he realized that no, it really had nothing to do with that. So he began asking the Richie's to explain more about blue people in their family, like immediate family members, extended family. And he essentially created a family tree. And he was identifying individuals who were blue versus individuals who were not blue, trying to ascertain why them, why, you know.

Why could he trace it back to a common? Right. And so he kept tracing it back. And eventually he traced it all the way back to the Fugates, to Martin Fugate and his wife Elizabeth Smith.

And I'll get into that in just a second. But as he was researching, he started to think, now remember he was a hematologist who was a blood doctor, basically. He felt like it was a rare blood disorder called, and I'm going to screw this up. I'm going to try my best.

Methimo globinemia. Yes. Which is when an above average level of methoma globin has presented itself in the body. So a blue hue is created.

It's a mutated form of red hemoglobin. So we normally normally normally have red hemoglobin. So this blue can only be seen in individuals who have this high level of this monosiclobin. Yeah.

Something. Exactly. No, I am not in the medical field. Are you shocked?

No. All right. But you ask yourself why just these individuals in this area in Kentucky, this seems like if this was just a high level, wouldn't other people have that? So this disorder can be caused by different ways.

Okay. So it's ways in which the body processes hemoglobin. And do know that hemoglobin is a protein molecule with red blood cells that carries oxygen from your lungs to your body tissues and back. So, and when it comes back, comes back from your body tissues to your lungs, it actually changes into carbon dioxide.

Okay. So basically, this is oxygenation within your blood. Okay. So same theory as if you were drowning, you're not getting oxygen to different parts of your body.

So yeah, your lips are turning blue. You're, you're, you're, you're, you're turning, okay. So while this is not affecting them physically, it is changing the color of their skin because of oxygen. Interesting.

Right. So it also could be caused by an enzyme deficiency. Okay. So for example, if you have been eating too much pork liver, okay, pork liver has high levels of vitamin K.

Vitamin K is the vitamin that actually keeps your bones really healthy. But eating too much pork liver, having too much vitamin K can cause an enzyme deficiency. Which would make sense for, you know, for multiple in an area, having it. Exactly.

Especially if that was kind of the only food that you had to eat. But why would it carry on generations? True. You know, so that just speaks to me to genetic.

So the doctor started to investigate further and he came upon upon a research paper by a doctor named Dr. Scott in Anchorage, Alaska, who studied Alaskans and Eskimos, who also had an issue with the themoglobinemia. And Dr. Scott felt like it was caused by a lack of an enzyme called diaphrase, which helps with blood oxygenation.

So without this enzyme, the themoglobin changes to hemoglobin. The idea of hemoglobin changing to hemoglobin would not be possible. And ultimately would cause the skin to turn blue. The doctor, Dr.

Scott also felt that this was a recessive gene. Okay. So think about it this way. In order to pass the gene down to a child, both mom and dad would have to carry similar DNA.

Or both have that recessive gene. Both have that recessive gene. Okay. So back in Kentucky, Dr.

Coline finds a lady named Bessie Fugate, one of the fugates, and she is blue. She agrees to give him a blood sample because they are also looking for answers. They don't know why they're blue. He discovers that there wasn't the enzyme, diaphrase, that most people have, that most normal individuals have that present in their bodies.

She did not have that. So that would actually give validity to Dr. Scott's thought that they're missing an enzyme. So if they're missing this enzyme, he started to trace back, right?

And investigate more into the family history. So when Martin Fugate marries Elizabeth Smith and they have these seven kids, like I said, four of them turned out blue. Now Martin wasn't blue, nor was his wife. His wife was like fair and redheaded.

And Martin is described as having like light brown hair and fair skin as well. So why? Both just got this recessive gene. They both had the recessive gene.

And how interesting, he comes, he's a Frenchman, and he comes to this area in Hazard, Kentucky. And Mary's this local woman. And together, they make blue children. It is because they were both missing this enzyme.

And when the DNA is paired together, there's that recessive gene. Now, when you continue to marry, intermarry, you're marrying cousins who have the same enzyme, you're continuing it. You're keeping it going. So over time, the number of blue people started to increase because they were procreating with individuals who shared the same recessive gene.

And I mean, if this random guy came over and he had this recessive gene, who's to say that there's not like other people not related to the family living in the area that also has the results? Exactly, that it could just kind of come out of nowhere. Yeah, that's easy. And I mean, it does speak to like, what if you are, you have that gene and you're eating a lot of pork liver?

I mean, you know. So eventually, over time, the number of blue people started to lessen because of the access to transportation. And it grew smaller and smaller. So, you know, the gene pool was spread out a little bit more.

So we weren't seen as many blue people. But they did exist. Again, they kind of kept themselves secluded. And I was actually trying to figure out, like, who was the last blue person?

You know, of this like, flute, fugate line. And I really wasn't able to find it, but I was able to find something about a man who was identified as Papa Smurf. Oh my God. Which is, that's horrible.

But obviously, they called him that because he had white hair and blue skin. Now, his blue skin was not because he was related to this family. He wasn't even living in that area. His name was Paul Carisson.

And he was actually born with light skin, freckles, reddish blonde hair. He developed blue skin after receiving silver poisoning from taking dietary supplements. Wild. Is that not crazy?

So he's taking dietary supplements and ends up having poison from the silver that's in it and that causes his skin to be blue. That's crazy. Yeah, he passed in 2013. But that is fascinating to me.

So it's not only the idea of the recessive gene. It's not only the idea of being passed down and inbreeding. It also could be caused by silver poisoning. Geez.

I mean, oh my gosh, it's so crazy. I'm really in different options there. That's crazy. I mean, it's funny that like, you said there's several redheads because red hairs are recessive gene as well.

I think this means your head for some blue babies. I may have this other weird enzyme thing because my brother and I both have red hair and either my parents do. No, I did ask if you were to have it. I've asked that several times.

My dad's side of the family has, his mom had red hair. So that's right. But my mom's side, nobody had red hair for the first one's really. Redheaded children.

So they both just carried that recessive gene and that was just crazy. But I know there's like, I mean, a lot of testing gets done for some of these genes that cause these horrific things. Like what is it? Tease-ak or what are you talking about?

Tease-ak. Tease-ak a lot of, and it's usually more in the Jewish population that have it. My guy worked with, he and his wife both actually got tested for that gene before they decided to have kids because they didn't want to go through that if they both had because you have a one in four chance if you both carry that gene of passing it. And kids with that don't live very long.

So they, I know they did, which I feel like that was a very responsible thing. It is very responsible. They went and both got tested and then they either wanted to have it. So that was really good.

But yeah, it's like genetics fascinate me. Even something as simple as eye color, you know? Yeah. Well, and that's also crazy to tell you about what I look like now.

But I have red hair and like blueish gray eyes. My brother has red hair and green eyes. Both of those combinations are extremely rare. I read a study that said you were that combination compared to being struck by lightning.

You're more likely to be struck by lightning than to meet a person. That looks like either myself or my brother. I feel like you two need to like play a lot of your stuff. I know, right?

We've got the genetics for it. Yeah. And that's like, that just fascinates me because I've never, I don't think other than my brother, I've ever met another person with red hair and blue eyes. All my friends I had red hair, growing up, all had brown eyes.

Interesting. So, because red hair is pretty common in this area. We have a lot of Irish descent here. A lot of people immigrated here from Ireland.

Way, way back then. So the red hair jeans just been here forever. Hmm. Well, I don't, you know, I don't have, there are no red heads in my family.

And obviously, I don't have red hair. I'm naturally blonde if you wanted to know. And I have, my eyes are blue and green. So sometimes they're really green and it's really, it just, yeah.

Yeah. It's just, it's weird. Like, I'm a big fan of the Punnett Squares from like Punnett Squares. That's how you like, you can do them.

We should do them in like middle school science class or whatever. Or you have like your two, usually blood types. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So you have like, if you're type A, you'd have like, like A and A and then the top line would be, if it was A B, you'd have A and B. And then you'd like do.

Start playing with them. Start figuring out like what's the likelihood that. You know, this would happen or like this thing. It's crazy.

It's really cool. It's so cool. Oh my gosh. So I think that's like my nerdy thing.

I feel like we've nerded out a little bit. It's so fun. But you know, I still, I'd love to see a blue person. You know?

I think that's so cool. Yeah. And now you know a little bit of what we look like. A little bit.

A little bit. A little bit. A little bit. I'm waiting for people to be like, oh my gosh, I thought that she was a brunette.

I thought that she was a, you know. I know, I know. Well, I wanted to dive in. I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

The next case I'm going to talk about is all about redheads. Oh, and we know they're fiery. They are fiery. A hot timber and we're really bad about anesthesia.

So it's fine. Yeah. The conic intolerance is really bad with anesthesia. Yeah.

A lot of weird stuff going on. I have a hard time making it through the maze. I'm blonde. Sorry for those of you who are blonde out there.

That was just a joke. Now I do have some intellect. I mean we both hold masters. They called and asked for it back.

Both of them, you know. You have called us back into just kidding. Please send those back. So before we go, I want to give a shout out to hazard Kentucky.

Heck yeah. Here's a question for you. Have you ever met a blue person? Is this like a thing that's talked about here?

Is this a thing, yeah. And are we just ignorant in bringing this up? Yes, we are. It's fine.

There's no doubt. But we'd like to learn more. So hit us up. How do they do that?

So you can send us an email at mountainnesseries.appletcha at gmail.com. You can find us on Facebook at Mountain Mystery and it's Tales from Appalachia. And find us on Instagram at mountainmisteries.appletcha. All right.

Well, join us back for the next episode. Yeah. We're looking forward to seeing you. See you next time.

Bye. Bye.