To be fair, there are some women out there who cannot breastfeed. My late mother told me she could not do it...what little she could produce did not have much nutritional value, so she had to put both my brother and me on formula. She told me there was great stigma put on her because she couldn't breastfeed (usually by male doctors).
But as you said...if you cannot breastfeed...there are formulas out there, usually at little or no cost.
Ignorance causes most breastfeeding problems.
I will only say that if something happened to your late mother then it was ignorance on her part, the doctors' part, and society's part. How did the doctor's know her milk was of no "nutritional value?" Did they have it tested and compared with the corn syrup-and-whey crap they call formula? Breast milk is thinner and bluish and does not resemble cow's milk. Yet is it superior in every way to milk from a cow, mixed with chemicals, which is given to human babies for food.. Cow's milk, is excellent, however, for growing the brains and bodies of baby cows. Breastmilk is also caused by the law of supply and demand. You need to nurse on demans, when baby is hungry. No supplements of water in bottles, no pacifiers, no nothing. Just the mother's breast. I can almost guarantee that your mother's failure had something to do with nurses giving her babies water bottles in the hospital (confusing the baby's sucking reflex), using pacificers, NOT nursing on demand, supplementing with formula. These are all recipies for nursing failire. I am sorry to have to be blunt but I have breastfed six children and have written professionally about breastfeeding.
Your mom should have gotten the service of a professional lactation consultant, or contacted La Leche League for a leader who would have personally come to her home and helped her learn how to breastfeed properly. Perhaps you and your family will do better in the future. There are many good books out today, one I like is "Breastfeeding: Pure and Simple" by Gwen Gotsch, and of course, the breastfeeding classic "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding."