She later entered the college of decorative arts of Limoges where she developed a strong liking for human shapes (faces and feminine curves) and beauty in general.
In 1945, she returned to the family farm in Germont where she spent the rest of her life working the land, something she did "because one has to earn their daily bread".
From the end of the 1940s to the early years of the following decade, as the exercise books in which she wrote her poems and thoughts were beginning to heap up, Marcela Delpastre sent some of her works to literary journals and arts reviews.
In the 1960s, Marcela Delpastre was the helpless witness of the death of her native village of Germont and the painful decline of the millennial farming civilization of Limousin.
The tractors replaced the oxen, the machines did the hands and television the evening gatherings... With all of her heart, Marcela now immersed herself into the tales, the legends and the traditions of her home país and met with Robert Joudoux, from the Lemouzi magazine, and Jean Mouzat, another Occitan author.
At the same time, she did the work of an ethnologist and wrote, in French, Le Tombeau des ancêtres (The Tomb of Our Ancestors) about the customs and beliefs surrounding local religious festivals and cults.
In 1968, La Vinha dins l’òrt (The Vine in the Garden) was released: this poem won an award at the Jaufre Rudel competition.
Its French version, La Vigne dans le jardin was adapted for the stage by the Radio-Limoges drama company.
They adapted more texts by Marcela Delpastre later in the decade, among which featured L’Homme éclaté (The Exploded Man) and La Marche à l’étoile (Walking to the Star).
Marcela kept on writing and published other poems in several reviews, such as Lemouzi, Traces, Poésie 1, Vent Terral and Òc.
By the end of the 1970s Marcela also met two very important men for her career: one is Micheu Chapduelh and the other is Jan dau Melhau.
She regularly featured in their review, Lo Leberaubre, and grew popular beyond the circle of her readers by giving her opinion in articles and interviews in the local Limousin press (Limousin Magazine, La Montagne, L’Écho, Le Populaire...), but most of all, among Occitan activists thanks to magazines like Òc, Occitans and especially Connaissance des Pays d’Òc, with Ives Roqueta’s help.
In the last years of her life, Marcela Delpastre (and her friend Jan dau Melhau) spent her time dusting off hundreds of unpublished texts.
Suffering from Charcot disease, she died in her bed on February 6, 1998, in her Germont farm, where she was born, where she’d always stayed and worked.
Jan dau Melhau, her sole legatee, has since released more of her writings for the Lo Chamin de Sent-Jaume publishing house.
A poet, a story-teller, an author and an ethnologist, Marcela Delpastre is now considered one of the ten most important writers of the 20th century, alongside the likes of Joan Bodon, Bernat Manciet, Renat Nelli and Max Roqueta.
The message of this woman, who never left her home land of Limousin, is one of universal significance, one that addresses everybody, and this is probably what makes her words so strong and beautiful.
The pebbles on the path that frost is working on, And the earth of the hills, Feel deep inside the leaven of the seed And the teeth of the roots.