“To be with him was to have fun,” remembered one of the cousins, “if for no other reason than that he so obviously was having a good time himself.” “I love all these children and have great fun with them, and am touched by the way in which they feel that I am their special friend, champion, and companion,” he wrote Edith’s sister. The letters he wrote his children—from Cuba, the White House, Panama, whenever separated from them—were to become famous when published as a best-selling book the year of his death.
