Carleen Lee (Craig) Darling, 82 years old of Greendale, IN passed away at home after a short hospital stay. Originally from Manchester, Carleen graduated from Guilford High School and lived the majority of her life in Yorkville, IN. She married her high school sweetheart, Robert Darling in 1959, and was a stay-at-home mom to their daughter, Charisee, until she went to school. Carleen entered the workforce after attending school to be a florist and opened her own flower shop, Darling Floral, out of her home in Yorkville. She subsequently opened a second shop in Metamora. After Robert passed away in 1989, Carleen closed the flower shop and worked at Rising Star Casino in Rising Sun before working at the Lawrenceburg Kroger as a cashier. She loved her job at Kroger as she was a social butterfly and enjoyed meeting so many people. She was known as the Grandma of Kroger throughout her tenure there. In fact, she was not happy when she had to retire because she missed the socialization and being in the middle of all the chaos.
Carleen loved sports cars and anything that went fast. She put the pedal to the metal at 100mph when taking the 275 bridge to Kentucky and rumor has it that she used to drag race on Route 48. She enjoyed driving until her license was taken away due to her macular degeneration diagnosis. Carleen eventually lost her eyesight to this disease and toward the end of her life was doing an immense amount of research on the topic. She discovered BrightFocusFoundation which is an organization that funds scientific research worldwide to defeat Alzheimer’s disease, macular degeneration, and glaucoma and provides expert information.
Carleen will be deeply missed by her daughter Charisse (Arnold) McGill; grandchildren Kyaira Walton, Rebecca (Jay) McGill, Kevin (Sandi) McGill, Amy (Vince) Hurst, and Dan (Sarah) McGill; 11 great grandchildren; and brothers John Craig, Bobby (Sarina) Craig, and Ronnie (Sue) Craig. She is preceded in death by Robert, her husband of 30 years, her parents Beaulah & Carl Craig, and her precious dog Boomer.
A private graveside service will be held honoring Carleen. Memorials can be made to BrightFocusFoundation. Memorials can be made online by visiting https://donate.brightfocus.org/mdr/donate or can be mailed to Andres-Wuestefeld Funeral Home at 25615 State Rt. 1, Guilford, IN 47022. Family and friends are encouraged to leave condolences at www.andres-wuestefeldfh.com