The couple converted a run-down building near an abandoned gas station into Le Rendez-Vous, a cozy bakery whose blend of bread, coffee and conversation soon charmed this rural community. After a while it seemed that the owner, Verlaine Daeron, and her partner and baker, Marc Ounis, had always been here, and always would be.

That is, until several weeks ago, when a telephone's ring interrupted Mr. Ounis's daily ritual of baking before daylight. It was Ms. Daeron, in tears, calling from Paris to say her application to renew her E-2 investor visa -- for foreign investors and business owners -- had been denied because her bakery had been determined to be "marginal."

...
when the State Department denied Ms. Daeron's visa, it became personal, for a couple, a town, a region.

While Mr. Ounis baked bread and shyly worked the counter -- usually the domain of the more outgoing Ms. Daeron -- Colebrook made some noise. Thousands of people signed petitions, while hundreds more, including Mr. Bald, sent letters to every official they could think of, from Washington to Paris.

The letters, typewritten and handwritten, all but demanded reconsideration. Many complained that a lot of businesses in the north country might be considered "marginal" by State Department standards; that a paper mill in Groveton closed not too long ago; that a small restaurant beside Le Rendez-Vous shut down this past winter. That everything is relative.

"Colebrook and this region of New Hampshire don't fit neatly into the bureaucratic formulas created by officials apparently removed from real life circumstances," Jayne Lytle, of North Stratford, wrote to Senator Jeanne Shaheen. Le Rendez-Vous, Ms. Lytle wrote, is a tourist draw, a good neighbor -- "an integral part of the economy."

...

Then she called to say she had been instructed to appear for an interview at 9:15 on the morning of May 19 at the following address: Ambassade des États-Unis d'Amérique, Service des Visas d'investisseurs; 4, avenue Gabriel, Paris. Her case, it seemed, was being reconsidered.

At 6 that morning, New Hampshire time, Ms. Daeron called Mr. Ounis at the bakery, excited: Her visa had been renewed. In notifying her, she said, the embassy official explained how struck he was by the sense of community reflected in all those letters; how much it reminded him of his hometown back in Wisconsin.

That day Mr. Ounis told everyone who walked through the door. And Ms. Daeron made another telephone call from Paris, this time to order more flour.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/us/01land.html