Which means that since there is so little real estate up for grabs everybody in town is obsessed by property and money. Who owns what, who is in line to own what, the disputed versions of a dead man's will, and who is related directly to whom by what marriage and is thusly in line for what house, what parcel, and so on. This wrangling over inheritances taxes the families of Beauville no end. Families can get ugly over property and money. With this kind of situation, you can expect that there are a lot of people in town who spend an inordinate amount of time combing the obituary pages.
People are real interested in who passes on and when.
Not because they are a funerary culture, you see, but more because they might be somehow related to the dear departed and thus featured prominently in the will of the deceased. OR, and better yet, maybe the departed was one of those unlucky souls deluded into believing that she would live forever or be saved by the miracles of modern medical technology and thus had never gotten around to even writing a will. In that case, the estate in question just might be up for grabs and who knew whether or not the faithful obituary reader might not be their danged distant relative on their grandmother's side back a generation or two and thusly entitled to a portion of the swag. Mind you, checking the death notices is not the only preoccupation taxing the residents of little Beauville. There is also a constant process of paying visits to relatives and friends, especially elderly friends who might be feuding with their remaining family members, under the guise of Christian charity.