She was a leader on her basketball and volleyball teams at the all-Hispanic Mission High School in a segregated education system, graduating in 1939.

[1] Polly began nursing school at the eve of the United States’ participation in World War II.

In 1946, the same year that she married Tony Abarca, she accepted a position as director of outpatient services at Memorial Hospital.

She founded a Corpus Christi cancer clinic, while volunteering to teach classes at a local settlement house.

After stepping away from the Planned Parenthood Center, she served persons with mental disabilities as nursing director at the Corpus Christi State School until her retirement in 1974.