The wheel "died on the doctor's table," you say. That could mean that the rim was dented or bent beyond repair (or that the brake pads had worn the rim sides dangerously thin) and you chose not to have the shop replace the rim, or that the hub or freehub internals failed and you chose not to spend the money for repair, and maybe one or two other possibilities.

Machine-built wheels are generally of much better quality than they were even 20 years ago, so buying an inexpensive wheel is not quite the gamble it once was. Your local bike shop can order such a wheel for you, or maybe they have it in stock.

Buying from the shop has a couple of major advantages: for example, they will sell you the right wheel (there are several variables beyond compatibility with rim brakes and quick-release hubs that you would need to know to order a wheel yourself), and they can check the wheel and do any minor truing it might need before selling it to you, and they have all the correct tools to transfer the set of sprockets from the old wheel onto the new one.

Also, if you buy the wheel from them and have them do the installation, they probably won't charge you for adjusting the derailleur for proper indexing. (Although a new wheel theoretically should swap in without the need for adjusting the rear derailleur, the derailleur usually needs a bit of minor adjustment to ensure correct indexing.)

Final thought: if the death of the wheel was a consequence of rim damage from, e.g., riding with insufficient tire pressure or riding blithely into a pothole: don't do that. If you don't have a floor pump with a built-in pressure gauge at home, buy one and use it regularly.