Blue People

Those Old Kentucky Blues: An Interrupted Case Study

by

Celeste A. Leander, Departments of Botany and Zoology, University of British Columbia Robert J. Huskey, Department of Biology, University of Virginia

Part I—”Blue People”

Ruth had never been as astonished as she was the day she encountered the first of the “blue people” from Troublesome Creek. The blue woman simply walked into the rural health clinic where Ruth was a nurse. Ruth suspected the woman was having a heart attack, but the woman wasn’t concerned at all. “I’m one of the blue Combses,” she explained to Ruth, as if it was all perfectly logical. “And my mother-in-law is a Fugate.” As their conversation continued, Ruth learned from her patient that there were, in fact, many blue people living in the isolated community around Troublesome Creek.

Questions

. Why might these people be blue? Generate at least two hypotheses. . How might you test your hypotheses?

Lorenzo (“Blue Anze”) and Eleanor Fugate, circa . Lorenzo was a son of Zach Fugate. Courtesy of Mary Fugate.

“Those Old Kentucky Blues” by Leander & Huskey

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Part II—Pieces of the Family Puzzle

So began an adventure that lasted nearly a decade. Ruth and a physician, Dr. Cawein, who had heard rumors of blue people in the region, spent the next summer fighting off bugs and dogs as they trudged through the region piecing together a family tree of the reclusive Fugates, a large clan living in the valleys and hollows of the Appalachian Mountains in eastern Kentucky. Several of the relationships that Ruth and Dr. Cawein established have since been challenged by modern-day descendents of Martin Fugate. Nevertheless, the major lineages that they were able to establish helped to answer some of Ruth’s questions. The Fugate clan in the Troublesome Creek region could be traced back to the arrival of Martin Fugate, an orphan from France, in . Legend has it that Martin may have been blue, but reports vary. For this case, we’ll...