Polly Machin Prior Memorial Service
Polly Prior’s memorial service will be held at Grace Community Church on
Saturday, February 28th, at 1:00 pm.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to Naomi’s Village or Wycliffe Associates.
Polly Machin Prior, 86, of Arlington, Texas, passed peacefully at home in her son’s arms at about 8:50 p.m. on December 29, 2025, just three days after a delayed pneumonia diagnosis. Born on December 12, 1939, in Baltimore, Maryland, to Robert “Bob” Eugene and Alma “Pat” Belle (McAfee) Machin, Polly lived a life filled with friendship, travel, learning, and a deep spiritual focus that touched thousands of people around the world for more than 60 years.
Polly attended Western High School in Baltimore, graduating at just 17. She completed her undergraduate teaching degree at Towson State Teachers College (1961) and went on to earn two master’s degrees—one from Wheaton College (1966) and another in Linguistics from the University of Texas at Arlington (1977). She also studied at Southeastern Bible College in Birmingham and completed linguistic training through Wycliffe Bible Translators in Duncanville, Texas.
After completing Wycliffe’s Jungle Camp survival training in Chiapas, Mexico, Polly and her translation partner, Sharon Stark, began work on translating the Bible into the Ngiwa (Popoloca) indigenous language of Puebla, Mexico, first helping to create a written form of the language. Polly went on to teach students from kindergarten through postgraduate levels across public, private, charter, and homeschool settings. Her educational career spanned roughly six decades and multiple nations across Asia and North America. She began homeschooling her own sons in Texas at a time when doing so risked being arrested for truancy.
In 1977, instead of pursuing a PhD, Polly chose marriage and motherhood, moving to Texas and giving birth to her two sons at home, with the help of a midwife, at ages 39 and 40. She and her husband, Will, helped launch the international missions team at their church, Shady Grove, participating in and leading some of its earliest mission trips to Borneo, Mexico, and China—taking their boys along once they were old enough.
Blending missions and an English teaching contract, the family moved to interior China. While there, they participated in discreet Bible studies, helped smuggle Bibles, and visited a remote region to meet a survivor of the Cultural Revolution. When that mission term ended, the family relocated to Chiba, Japan, where Polly ministered to a Women’s AGLOW group.
After briefly returning to the United States for training with a new missions organization, the family returned to China one year after the Tiananmen Square Massacre to formally study Chinese for their second mission. A third mission followed, but after more than eight years in Asia, their home church suddenly withdrew support, bringing them back to the United States permanently. More than a decade later, Polly fulfilled a dream by visiting biblical sites in Israel, Turkey, and Greece.
During the early 1980s, Polly wrote several worship songs, published in 1984, and later republished in her own books in 2006 and 2013. She became briefly involved in Texas politics, supporting pro-life initiatives, Reagan’s reelection, and even witnessing ballot stuffing at the RPT State Convention. Decades later, she grew disillusioned with the two-party system and became an independent, supporting Tom Hoefling’s presidential campaigns because of his Equal Protection for Posterity platform and her unwavering belief in protecting the pre-born.
A life member of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, Polly spent years researching her family’s genealogical history, traveling the country, and poring over archives. In 2022, she visited the Civil War battlefield where her great-grandfather, Robert Machin, was wounded in June 1863. She was proudly descended from nine Mayflower passengers, early Huguenot settlers of Dutch New Amsterdam, multiple Revolutionary War Patriots, a War of 1812 nurse, two Union soldiers, an indentured Scottish rebel, and distant cousins who operated an Underground Railroad station.
Missions remained her life’s calling. At age 63, she began writing books to help women heal after the loss of a spouse, including through divorce—pain she knew personally after 24 years of marriage. One of her most meaningful works, God Knows My Name, explored the unnamed women of the Bible whose stories were preserved despite their anonymity. Her compassion for widows and orphans led her to Naomi’s Village in Kenya, where she served on multiple trips at an age when many would choose to stay home.
Polly will be deeply missed by her family, friends, and all those she supported through prayer and encouragement. We rejoice, however, knowing she is now in the presence of her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Polly was preceded in death by her parents and her brother-in-law, Jim Eubank. She is survived by her sister, Jo; her sons, Robert “Andy”, his wife Bethzy, and Stephen; and her grandson, Luke, who stole her heart during the beautiful 18 months they shared.
