Sorrell Booke. He based his character’s accent on Strom Thurmond.
If Mr. Booke based the accent on Strom Thurmond it was not Georgia or South Alabama, Strom came from Edgefield, South Carolina. I am 68 and was born and raised here so I can attest that there used to be many, many different accents in this state. In fact it was forty years ago that I took a job based here where I am now, just fifty miles from the little farm where I grew up and when I first came here every time I opened my mouth someone would comment that I was obviously, “not from this part of the state.”
Fifty years ago a man from Orangeburg and a man from Spartanburg might have had a difficult time understanding each other. I can drive from the high school I attended to Lake City, SC in about two hours maximum but in 1960 a young teacher who grew up on a tobacco farm near Lake City and had just graduated from Clemson came to our school to teach vocational agriculture and we were amazed how different his accent was from ours. He told us that, “Peepal frum da lowa pot de ste-at tawk different.” Some of us used to read the State Newspaper which was published in Columbia but people in some parts of the state read, “Da Ste-at Peppa”.
I actually preferred it that way, now everyone is beginning to sound a lot more alike, I have a nephew age 26 who grew up at Fort Mill, SC which is close to Charlotte, NC, he sounds like a radio announcer in comparison to what I grew up hearing. I would like to hear just once more, “You set yoseff down rye cheer in da rockin’ cher an’ make yoseff at home.” I miss Ol’ Strohm and the way he used to say “hoose” instead of house.