OWNING and operating a small business is difficult enough even for the most enthusiastic and experienced entrepreneur. So imagine the questions, the shock, the helplessness a person must feel when one is dropped in your lap, which is the situation Sally Weber Marrell of North Canton, Ohio, and her sisters found themselves in several years ago.

Neither Marrell nor any of her sisters were involved in the operation of Bob-O-Link Golf Course, a 36-hole facility their father built and operated since the early '60s.

Everything was humming along nicely until March 1991, when Paul A. Weber fell and lapsed into a coma. He never regained consciousness, and 13 days later he died. Only at his funeral did the family become aware of the wishes in his will, which stipulated that his estate, including Bob-O-Link, be shared among his four daughters. All of which was entirely unexpected since he never once gave the family any indication of his plans.

"He just never took the opportunity to sit down with us and say, 'This is specifically what I want to happen and this is specifically how it's going to be given to you,'" said Marrell, who left her job as a counselor in the area of alcohol and other drugs and now shares ownership of the course with two of her sisters, Jody Govenar, an art instructor, and Julie Weber, who teaches equestrian studies at a ranch she owns nearby. "He was very much a self-made man, but he wasn't a man who sat down in meetings and talked and planned."

Because his estate was rather complicated -- it included an apartment complex and several businesses, Bob-O-Link among them -- it took four years to complete the settlement. As it turns out, that was largely beneficial to Marrell and her sisters. They were able to observe some of the day-to-day operations of the facility without being forced to make the tough business and management decisions, and all the while the courses continued to operate normally through the administration of an executrix.

Along the way the heirs experienced one of the painful consequences of insufficient estate planning: inheritance taxes. "We had to sell a considerable amount of Dad's land to satisfy the taxes," Marrell explained. "One of the first tasks was to decide what needed to be sold in order to maintain what we needed to keep. We tried to maintain the integrity of the estate."

At one time, when they were much younger, the daughters had an interest in the family business. "It was not a time when Dad was in a position to look at how he was going to pass down the family businesses," Marrell says. "This man was basically his own boss. It was his business and he chose to do what he chose to do, and we had to deal with that."

The sisters have acquired an incredible education over the last few years. They've learned about banking and financing, employee management and manufacturers, cash flow and health insurance, marketing and inventory -- even the oil business (from wells their father drilled).

"I never knew how intricate the golf course business was," Marrell says. "I can't even say I know it; I'm learning it, and for me that kind of challenge and that kind of learning is exciting. I've also had to face the challenges of working with family. We've never worked in a family setting, and it's more complex than I realized."

Marrell also has learned the obvious. "The importance of estate planning cannot be overstated," she emphasizes. "We all, subsequently, have asked, 'How do we want this to play out in our lives and in our children's lives and on into our grandchildren's lives?'"

Marrell and her sisters grasped a great deal from their father's death. Future generations, she hopes, learn as much from them.

-- Rich Skyzinski