Write This One Page Now or Your Children Will Fight. I Cleared 1,400 Ohio Homes

May of 2009, a white frame house in Gallipolis, Ohio. Two sisters stood on either side of their mother's cedar chest, each with one hand flat on the lid, and they didn't speak to each other again for eleven years. I'd bet their mother promised that chest to both of them, out of love. After 32 years and about 1,400 homes cleared in the river towns of southeastern Ohio, Ruth Whitlock, the estate sale lady, shares the nine lines she'd put on one sheet of paper this week so your children never fight over your things, and the three questions she asked every family before she unlocked their front door. It isn't a will and it doesn't replace one. It's for the cedar chest, the pie plate, the photographs and the jewelry box that most wills never get around to naming. In this video: 1. Every promise, with one name beside it 2. The small things nobody names (the kitchen five) 3. The photographs 4. What's real and what isn't in the jewelry box 5. Who holds the key, and the one line that keeps the peace 6. What isn't yours (the not mine list) 7. The story behind each thing 8. How your children split the rest (take turns, and the order changes every round) 9. The line nobody writes Plus: Ruth's three questions, and how to finish your own one-page letter tonight. Tell me in the comments where you're watching from, and whether anyone ever promised you something and then promised it to someone else. Just type twice. I read every one. Subscribe for the rest of the ledger. Fourteen hundred houses taught me what families wish their mother had written down. Before you carry one more thing up to the attic, ask yourself: Who did I promise it to? Does anybody else know the story? And is it written down? You spent your whole life making them a family. Don't let a cedar chest take it back. Ruth Whitlock, southeastern Ohio