Folks, I am from the South (Alabama), my Mother was a Dover, and I have never heard "Dover" pronounced as "Dever", etc. Now, as for "Lula/Luler", "Thelma/Thelmer", "fire/far", "bear/bar", "hair/har", etc., YES, you do hear a lot of these pronunciations even now. However, mostly it's older people of a rural background, with not much education (although you do hear you do hear a few younger people do the same). When I was a kid and we used to visit Mama's relatives in the country, I was always very aware of the way they talked. I used to call it "hillbilly". Mama, by association I guess, lost a lot of the accent, and so did Aunt Cleo, and my two uncles who left the country and lived and worked in various cities in the U.S. There are two distinct accents here in the South (Alabama, at least), the "hillbilly" (old rural country accent), and, for lack of a better term that I can think of, a more "cultured" accent. The latter is spoken mostly by people who are better educated. I can't really describe it, you have to hear it. So, ya'll come on down! Sherry