Benge,
Check your local library. I work in the reference dept. of a county library. We have a subscription to the Ancestry.com database. Library card holders are able to use it for free and for an unlimited length of time. It is the most popular database at our library and a number of serious genealogists come in daily to use it.
Additionally, if you use the online Social Security Death index to determine the month and year of a person's death, you can contact a library with newspaper microfilm holdings within the vicinity of the decedent's domicile. A staff member will be happy to search the microfilm to find that obituary for you at no charge. Well, she will if she is anything like me.
You can make online requests for that service to libraries all over the country. I just did one for a lady in Scotland.