Should they have dealt with Mr. Wilson's death realistically?

I would say the biggest reason they didn't is because TV series, especially comedies, and even more so, comedies specifically meant to appeal to kids, almost always stayed away from anything to do with death, especially the real-life death of a person who played a character on the series. When necessary, there would be a mention that so-and-so had died some time ago, and the series moved on. One example of this, Gramps on the original Lassie series. ( I realize that was more drama than comedy, but examples of actor's deaths on old-time shows are hard to come by.)

Producers would surely have feared losing their audience--in a highly competitive era where ratings were so important to the series continuing on the air. One serious sad episode about Mr. Wilson dying might have led to the show's cancellation. Forget about whether we today think it should have ended when he died. The people working on the series--all the crew, cast, and executives had plenty of reasons to want the series to continue.

I note that Mr. Kearns died in February and the last episode filmed with him appearing first aired in May--three months later. It might have been awkward to do a show dealing with the Mitchells and Martha grieving over the loss of George that would air over 3 months after the real person died. Maybe they could have pulled it off, but it was certainly not something anyone would have expected of a series in that era. I doubt anyone connected with Kearns or the series at that time thought they were doing anything the least bit insulting to him.

I don't think TV ever made mention of an actor when they died like they do now. If they don't mention the passing of an actor or actress now they often mention them in memoriam at the end. You are so right about not having an episode detailing why a person was gone. It was a different world in TV land.

Sylvia Field knew her days were numbered on DTM as she couldn't
continue to live with her brother in law. I don't believe she even mentioned George.

I agree about shows avoiding telling kids about death back then. I remember when we kids learned that Superman committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. Being the naive kids we were, we couldn't believe that he was killed but reasoned that he could only have died because he shot himself in the head, the only vulnerable part of his body.

Just saw that particular episode season 3 episode 30 the Man Next Door when Joseph Kearns comes through the cellar window and falls on his head. He looked sort of dazed like he hurt himself. He was too old to do that stunt and I heard it had an effect on his death. Is that what caused his death?

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Ironically enough, I watched Captain Kangaroo during the seventies and over thirty years later, totally by chance, I looked up the little woman who used to sing on his show and appear in skits, to "see what she may have done later on" only to learn she suffered from mental illness, was hospitalized and during a visit to her apartment to get some personal things, she jumped out the window to her death.

I never knew any of this as a kid, and either you are told the events or you aren't, but all I can do now is wonder what I may have thought had I learned this when I was watching her on the show (episodes continued to air with her after her death).

That being the case, I really cannot say if shows should deal with a person's death, especially kids shows.

In some ways I just like the idea of not knowing what happened to Debby.