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Just to add a little to what has been said, it doesn't depend on the state as to what constitutes a total loss, that's the insurance company's work. Since a vehicle has some salvage value even when badly damaged it doesn't necessarily mean the damage total met or exceeded the then market value. Typically, when I was in the business, a car would total when the estimated repair cost got to somewhere around 80% of market value. With a Honda they would sometimes go higher because of their very good historical value retention. It would depend too on the model. If it's a low end Civic it wasn't worth much when it was new, comparatively speaking, to say a loaded Accord. If the vehicle blew both airbags that could mean that it wouldn't take very much more structural damage to bring the car to a total loss. Not sure how the shops in PA. handle it, but replacing two bags, the controller, at least the steering wheel center, and sometimes the whole thing, and possibly the dash board, and the windshield, just that part could run a good $3-4k with the charges of a certified airbag installer. Then the sheetmetal work, paint work, maybe some light suspension work, and you could double that pretty easily. If it had a $10k market value at the time it would have been close to a goner price wise. Not a bad fix, but airbag replacement (done correctly) totaled a lot of low value cars that would have been repaired in the pre-bag days.

My advice is have a pre-purchase inspection done by a highly qualified collision repair shop and have them tell you if it was repaired correctly. If airbags are important to you and/or Brenda, have them check to make sure they're installed, some times cut rate repairs are done by not replacing the bags, controller, etc to save money.

EDIT: And it should go without saying, DON"T PAY MARKET VALUE. A salvage title knocks a big chunk out of the value because of the clouded history that has caused you concern, even in these days of CARFAX. A major buyer beware issue. Around here, depending on the car, salvage titled cars are discounted 30-50% from non-clouded title equivalents.