The bedraggled doll, which had almost been destroyed when the house in which it was housed burned down, was moved from one storage room to another at The Franklin Institute for six years. Charles Roberts, a mechanic at the Institute, started to work straightening out the tangled mess of cams and springs.He dressed the figure as "The Green Lady" and had her back in operating condition after several months of work.

The restoration of the original motion of dipping a pen (or perhaps it was a brush) into an inkwell turned out to be impossible. Roberts substituted a stylograph pen which has since been replaced by a totally unhistorical, but much more convenient ball point pen. It was necessary to make a number of new parts, but the only signficant alterations made were to the writing instrument and the doll's costume.