In addition, Dresser gave money to "tramps, hangers-on, and to those who were simply down on their luck." He also helped support his siblings, including his brother, Theodore. Dresser began giving out money to his friends to help them. Despite his falling income, Dresser continued to spend liberally. He gave away large sums of money to his friends and family, spent vast sums at the city's brothels and saloons, and by 1903 he was nearly impoverished. Without the means to support himself, Dresser was unable to continue his lifestyle in New York City. In addition, Dresser's obesity made it difficult for him to attract women, leaving him depressed and alone. Death Dresser's health began to deteriorate rapidly at the end of 1905, when he wrote to his sister that he was ill, but gave no details. After his finances finally gave out, Dresser was forced to leave the hotel where he was living and move to his sister's and brother-in-law's home in New York City. Dresser died at their home on January 30, 1906, at 6:23 p.m., from a brain hemorrhage. He also suffered from alcoholism, obesity, and depression. A funeral was held in New York City on February 2, but because Dresser died penniless, his remains were held at Calvary Cemetery on Long Island until his funeral bill was paid. On March 19 Dresser's remains were moved to St. Boniface Cemetery in Chicago, where a funeral and final burial took place on November 23, 1907. With no funds to purchase a memorial stone, Dresser's grave remained unmarked until 1922, when the Indiana Society of Chicago had a boulder from the banks of the Wabash River brought to Chicago to mark his burial site. Legacy Dresser's most significant legacy is his music. Although Dresser had no formal training in music composition, he wrote ballads that had wide popular appeal, especially home-and-mother songs and songs of lost sweethearts and dead heroes. Warm and "genuinely tender", they represented a middle-class perspective. While Dresser's melodies and lyrics were often sad, they could also be "spirited and bubbly" or "emotional and sentimental" with a "wide and enduring appeal". Newspaper and magazine columnist H. L. Mencken remarked that it is a “high honor to write songs that a hundred million people all know and all love” in a reference to Dresser's work. The Indiana General Assembly named his most famous song, “On the Banks of