Her mother, Pure Maortúa, who was a great friend of Federico García Lorca, belonged to the Lyceum Club and was a founder of the theater company Anfistora.

On July 10, at the National Hotel, her peers and friends paid tribute as she became the first woman to receive an architecture degree in Spain.

In the same year, she served on the Governing Board of the Women Association of Architects of Madrid as secretary from August to October (or November), at which time she moved with her family to Valencia.

However, she was sentenced on 9 July 1942 to disqualification in perpetuity for public office, banned from the private practice of her profession for five years, and fined 30,000 pesetas.

In 1998, the Asociación La Mujer Construye (Women Build Association) made a public acknowledgment of Ucelay as the first woman graduate in architecture in Spain.