I saw PLACES a coupla days ago for the first time. Did Edna's husband NOT leave behind any life insurance? It seems even in 1935, people held policies, though the death benefits would've been more likely in the hundreds, rather than thousands of dollars. My grandmother once showed me a late 30s "premium book" from a life insurance company and it showed receipts for premium payments of 60 cents each! I think the death benefit was $200.
"May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?"
The best answer to your query is that, obviously, it's the way the writer decided to write the story.
If this was a real life situation, set in the Great Depression of the 1930s, Edna's husband probably couldn't afford life insurance. Then, as now, people in high risk professions -- such as law enforcement -- had to pay exorbitantly high premiums for life insurance because they face the possibility of death every day.
And even if he did have insurance, as a law officer, his policy probably excluded" death caused by law enforcement activities. Most insurers have excluded death and injuries in high risk jobs like that for many years. I was an airborne traffic reporter for a few years in Houston back in the 70s, and when my insurance company found out about it, they cancelled by life insurance policy.
Besides, this story is about a woman's struggle to survive after her husband is killed. I'm content to let the writer tell the story any way he chooses.
The greatest trick the devil ever did was to convince the modern world that he doesn't exist.
A-MEN , to that!
shareMy best guess is his income was just enough to pay the mortgage and keep the family fed, as was the norm in the 1930's. Probably couldn't afford the insurance premiums.
shareWhen my husband died at age 31 in 1989 I only had $5000 life insurance on him that I got from work. I wasn't planning on him dying at such an early age.
My dad passed in 2001 and didn't have life insurance. He was a farmer and had hundreds of acres of farmland, so that was his "insurance." Not everybody has life insurance today, and I would imagine it was especially more difficult to pay for during the depression.