Deleting section break and retaining section properties

[New Daddy]

After more than two decades of using Word, this still baffles me. When you remove a section break, the section properties (e.g., header, footer, margins, etc.) are inherited from the following section. You may or may not want that. Sometimes when you erase a section break between two sections, your intention is for the second section to follow the first, not the other way around.

Is there an easy way to reverse what Word does normally and make the first section the dominant section on section properties?