This one's it for me.  The serial number on the movement dates it to somewhere in the 1890s.

Nice Great White!  I passed on the chance to get one about ten years ago and I've been kicking myself ever since.

Wear it!  Take a bit of care in your daily life and perhaps don't wear it in truly hazardous (for the watch) situations, but wear it.  Any scratch that's not truly epic will likely polish out at the next service.  My daily driver is a Speedmaster Professional.  I don't wear it if I'm going to be underneath my car, hiking or at the beach, but otherwise it's generally on my wrist.  I live in New York City where sidewalk sheds and scaffolding are a fact of life; if I'm walking through a zone where exposed bolt heads and other random protruding bits of metal are prevalent, I'll tuck my wrist into the small of my back as I pass through.  Otherwise, I just live my life, and get a nice warm feeling when I glance at my wrist :-).

It sounds to me like it fixed her :-)

Never.  I'm left-handed and have always worn my watches on my right wrist.  I find a watch on my left wrist incredibly distracting because I'm so unused to it.  There's also a fit issue there; my left (dominant) wrist is slightly larger than my right wrist, so a watch sized for my right wrist may not even fit (comfortably, at least) on my left wrist.  If I'm running/hiking or off to the gym, I'll wear my Garmin Forerunner.  But for any non-athletic activity, I'll wear a "real" watch, and if I want my Garmin to track that activity, I'll toss it in a jacket pocket.  

Unless you have some experience with watch repair, it's probably not a good idea to struggle to remove any casebacks.  The risk of damage to parts that can't be easily replaced is too great. On some older watches, you can pop open the caseback with a thumbnail and I think you'd probably be OK opening ones like that, but anything that looks like it requires tools to open, I'd leave to a watchmaker.  The old Gruen curvex is lovely and you don't see too many of them around anymore.  That's definitely one I'd like to see running and worn again.  Also, when you talk about "restoration", I'd be careful about going too far.  Getting the movements serviced and running again is definitely a good idea.  So is replacing a scratched/damaged crystal.  But tread lightly with cosmetic work.  In particular, dial refinishing is something that can harm the value of a watch more than help it.