A woman in a red sweater raises her camera to photograph two adults and a small child nestled among fat orange pumpkins and cornstalks on a hillside field — and in doing so, she's become the unwitting subject of a postcard that perfectly captures New England autumn nostalgia at its most vivid. Below them, the white spire of Peacham's Congregational Church punctuates a valley ablaze with October foliage, a red barn and silo anchoring the right foreground, and the rolling hills of Caledonia County dissolving into a hazy blue horizon. Peacham, Vermont — settled in 1776 between U.S. Routes 5 and 2, southwest of St. Johnsbury — was already a beloved postcard subject by mid-century, its unspoiled village green and church making it a perennial "quintessential Vermont" image. The Ektachrome photograph was taken by Carleton Allen and published by Forwart's Color Productions of Manchester; the card traveled through the mail in 1977, carrying a warm vacation message from Howard and Doris to their friends Dale and his wife in Newark, Ohio, stamped with the Liberty Bell 13¢ definitive.