Wright was born in Saluda County, South Carolina, USA, on 15 June 1906. She was the eldest of 12 children born to parents Joseph Wright and Ada Culbreath. She attended public schools in Saluda County, where she graduated from Saluda Rosenwald School and did further training to become a teacher at Bettis Academy, a Junior College of Edgefield County, South Carolina.

Wright never married nor had children. She worked as a teacher in the rural schools of Saluda County and retired from Riverside High School in the mid-1960s. She was a member of the Pleasant Hill Baptist Church.

As of her 111th birthday, she had one living sister, Annie Belle Chappelle, who was 96 at the time. At the time, she resided in Saluda.

Wright passed away at Lexington Community Hospice House in Lexington, South Carolina, USA, on 16 May 2018, at the age of 111.