By Holly Heller Enquirer Editor
BREMEN — Darlene “Popcorn” Smith, a 74-year-old lifetime Bremen   resident who passed away Feb. 23 has certainly left her mark on Bremen.
“Everyone knew her. She’s like an icon, a Bremen icon,” said Phyllis Van De Keere, who works for the town of Bremen.
She will be remembered as a kind lady who loved to collect dolls, go to garage sales and auctions, and most of all, ride her three-wheel bicycle while whistling merrily through the streets of town, and beyond.
“She’s just Bremen,” said close friend Jenny Andrews. “I’ve listened to her whistle up Center Street my whole life. Her memory’s still there. It’s just like anything else. When it stops, you miss it.”
Many citizens of Bremen looked past Smith’s mental disability and reached out to help her when she needed it.
“Everybody still cares about Popcorn,” Andrews said. “The people in Bremen always looked out for her.”
One of those people was Tim Montague, superintendent of the Bremen Electric Department.
“We would go there [to her home on Beyler Street] periodically. She’d call and say her electric was out. Generally all it was, we had to put a new light bulb in her lamp.”

Montague and the rest of the electric department didn’t mind.
“We knew her situation, so we just went out and helped her,” he said.
Her nephew, Doug Flory has many fond memories of his aunt.
“That she was always on the go,” he said with a smile. “One time I found her over by the old Garner’s Truck Stop.”
When he found her several miles west of town on her three-wheel bike, Flory recalled trying to give her a ride back to Bremen.
“She wouldn’t let me give her a ride,” he said. “She was stubborn.”
Flory said that day, she continued her journey to Plymouth. She also frequently pedaled her way to Nappanee to see a relative in a nursing home there.
“She was a go-getter,” Flory said fondly. “And she was always very friendly. She was always riding her bike.”
Andrews also has warm memories of Smith.
“She was kind to people. She was a fine lady, a nice lady,” Andrews said. “She liked to tease and kid around. She was a doll collector. She loved babies. And she collected salt and pepper shakers. She loved auction sales.”
While nobody knows for sure, everyone has a guess about the origin of her nickname.
“We don’t know for sure,” Flory said. “We think it was a name given to her when she was young. They called her Popcorn and they called her sister Peanut.”
Andrews shared another common tale.
“Everybody’s got different stories,” Andrews said. “I heard it was because she used to feed popcorn to the animals and birds.”
Her family decided to give her 24-hour care by moving her to Bremen Health Care Center in January of 2003.
“She had always lived with my grandmother,” Flory said. “But after my grandmother died, she was living in the house by herself. She had a couple of accidents, where she fell off her bike. She was afraid she’d fall again and she became basically housebound.”
Smith went on to make many friends at BHCC — especially with the staff members, according to Jolene Teghtmeyer, activities assistant.
“She became one of the family,” she said. “Everybody here was friends with her. We all knew her.”
Smith and Teghtmeyer had a special bond.
“Her and I were buddies. I just loved her. There wasn’t a day that went by when she didn’t say, ‘Jolene Teghtmeyer, I love you.’ She would always use my full name. She was just so much fun. I miss her so much.”
Teghtmeyer said Smith loved Pepsi and popcorn and that she was very “feisty” and “lively.”
“She would always say ‘Wanna fight?’ and you’d say ‘No’ and she’d say ‘Are you chicken?’ That was her famous line.”
Teghtmeyer was impressed with Smith’s sharp memory.    
“I don’t think people knew how smart she was. She remembered dates and things about the town. She remembered all her family’s birthdays and the day they died. I’m amazed at all the things she remembered. She was just a remarkable person.”
She was also very honest.
“If you were fat, she told you you were fat,” Teghtmeyer said with a laugh.
She had many regular visitors during her three-year stay at BHCC.
“She had a good life, a full, happy life. She had all kinds of people stop in to see her. She wasn’t forgotten. She was such a character. You just don’t forget people like her. She was one in a million. She always will be.”