I'm helping my wife write a resume for her job application, and a rather unfortunate thing has been brought up - her most recent employer is actually dead. That is to say, the only person who had any record of her working at her previous position passed away after she left, and it's unlikely that anyone else has any record of her working there (It's a volunteer position, but she was in a paid position).
Similarly, her position directly before that she did not have any favorable supervisors, and recently fell out of contact (and favor) with the one co-worker she had at that location.
This leaves a rather unfortunate hole in her resume - despite the fact that she did in fact work very hard at both of these locations. We would like to include these previous positions, but are worried that, when looking for references, her prospective employer will be concerned that we cannot offer any from her previous working positions.
How can we reflect on her resume that she did work for this period of time, but that we sadly cannot count on anyone from those locations as work references?