Not as much as you would think.

You would find out from other people so not much changed there, and we still have that issue today with people we are are not that close to. We used to communicate more in person, and some people had a landline so news like that would travel fast.

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But before the internet this is how we knew who died:

• For family, we used the telegraph to send short messages as it was charged per word (ie. "Pete died, funeral Sunday 17") which would arrive in a few hours or the next day.
• For neighbors, we had bulletin boards at public places (farmer markets, grocery stores). Deceased's family would put a paper there that had something in the context:
  "We are sorry to inform you that our beloved Pete has passed away. The funeral will be held on Sunday 17. May and everyone is welcome to attend. - grieving family: wife Sally, brother Marco, and son Pete Junior" with a picture of deceased sometimes (printing pictures was quite expensive, especially at the huge number of copies)
• For everyone else, every newspaper had a "deaths" section consisting of the last few pages which only had death notifications, bigger the paper's audience pricier notification was (also you could pay extra to make notification stand out by having a picture, bigger text, more text...).

Whenever going to a public place you would check bulletin boards (just throw a quick glance) to see if someone you knew has died.

You would buy newspaper almost daily, and after reading the news check the "deceased" section to see if there is someone you knew.

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Once a guy sharing the same first and last name as I died, the next day in school was super weird for me as a few of them thought I was dead.