Adlin Boyd Douglas was born in Panama on 14 December 1913, the third of six children born to Jamaican-born parents Alfred and Margaret Mott Boyd. When she was just 1, her mother brought her back to Jamaica, where they would live with her aunt, Edna.

In 1942, she married Ashman Douglas in Carron Hall, St. Mary, Jamaica. In 1954, the couple emigrated to the United States. She worked as a babysitter and seamstress, before later serving as a charter school superintendent. She also worked for nearly 30 years in her church’s treasury department and served as deaconess. In 2009, at the age of 95, she was honored by her church for her dedication, and was awarded with the Perpetual Mother.

A member of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, she has always avoided caffeine, alcohol, and tobacco.

In December 2023, she celebrated her 110th birthday and became a supercentenarian. While her birthday party had to be cancelled due to her being too tired to leave her bed, she was nonetheless visited at her nursing home by friends and family. She currently resides in Riverdale, New York, USA at the age of 110.