The Blue Fugate Family

Yesterday’s post was about a legend of green people who lived in Medieval England. Today I bring to you the true story of blue people who lived in the United States in the 19th-21st centuries.

The first group come from a family of Kentucky folks who stemmed from a common ancestor named Martin Fugate. He had been orphaned as a youth in France, and settled in Troublesome Creek Kentucky in 1820, marrying a young woman with pale skin called Elizabeth Smith.

Unbeknownst to either of them, they each carried an extremely rare blood disorder called methemoglobinemia — their blood couldn’t release oxygen effectively to their body tissues. I.e., it turned them blue.

The first image is a recolored photo of some of the Fugate descendants — in that part of rural Kentucky at the time, marrying options weren’t great, and the family became inbred with the blue condition. You can see a modern descendent in the second photo. Over time, the blue-skinned Fugates became embarrassed about their skin color, which carried with it a stigma of inbreeding. The blue Fugates tended to recoil from public observation, which had the unfortunate effect of continuing the inbreeding and thus, their blue skin.

Finally in the mid-20th century, the blue Fugates were able to be cured of the disorder (fun fact: they needed to consume *more* methylene to get rid of the super-abundance of methemoglobinemia).

The Fugates’ story contrasts with the tale of Paul Karason, a Washington man who deliberately turned his skin blue. (See last photo) He didn’t do it for the color, however. Rather, he decided to consistently consume silver chloride and rubbed colloidal silver on his face — he was trying to treat his dermititis, and felt the silver concoction helped his arthritis and acid reflux. Paul Karason died in 2013 at age 62 of a heart attack followed by a stroke — the silver mixture he took could do nothing to help the fact that Paul was a heavy smoker with heart problems.