(Frank later disappears in suspicious circumstances. His death is never pinned on anybody.)

"Goodbye, Earl!"

Is the town’s attitude toward Ruth and Idgie historically accurate for a small southern town in the mid-twentieth-century?

I haven't read the novel since seventh grade, but the fact that it foregrounds racism suggests that it's not trying to paint the town as an anachronistic utopia so much as a small community that has decided to make an exception, which does not strike me as historically impossible, especially if Idgie has always done the socially, normatively masculine thing: she fits a recognizable category.