Susan Love spent months trying to keep COVID-19 out of a South Jersey retirement community. Then it killed her.

During the year of the pandemic, Susan Love’s all-consuming, sad, uplifting job was to keep the vulnerable residents of Lions Gate safe from the coronavirus.

To her dismay, the virus still infiltrated the Voorhees retirement community during New Jersey’s first, horrific wave in the spring. Ninety-nine staff members and residents tested positive. Fourteen residents died.

Love, who was CEO of Lions Gate, was “heartbroken,” her mother said, but she kept a smile on her face and doubled down on efforts to fight the insidious new disease.

There were no new deaths after May.

Until Jan. 31. On that day, COVID-19 killed the first Lions Gate staff member: Susan Love.

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Chances are good that the virus did not find her at work. She got sick after her parents did, after she went to their Cherry Hill home — dressed in an N95 mask, face shield, gloves, and gown — to care for them. Her mother, Judy Love, 84, recovered after a short stint in the hospital. Her father, Donald Love, 82, died on Dec. 8. On Dec. 11, the day after her father’s funeral, Susan Love was hospitalized with breathing problems. She spent seven weeks there. Neither a ventilator nor an ECMO machine could save her. She died a month after her 58th birthday.

On the day she died, many at Lions Gate were getting their second dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

Friends, coworkers, and family members described Love as an exceptionally well-rounded woman. She was kind, patient, funny, and generous with her warm smiles. She was also unflappable, efficient, and detail-oriented. She stood her ground with residents and families who hated the COVID-19 lockdown. She regularly worked 13-hour days and was always on call. Her door was always open.

If she saw a scrap of paper on the carpet at Lions Gate, she picked it up. She served food at holiday buffets. She knew every resident’s name and attended every funeral. She hand-wrote New Year’s cards to residents each Rosh Hashanah. She loved chocolate, the color yellow, monkeys, and golfing with her parents. She was such a multitasker that she used the time when she was washing her hands — she did that a lot last year — to think about what made her grateful. She could not sing or dance well, but that didn’t stop her from doing either. She dressed like Jane Fonda to lead a chair exercise class that residents loved. She was a prankster who enjoyed hiding her sisters’ keys and scaring coworkers with fake spiders.

“She absolutely became the heart and soul of Lions Gate,” said Alison Platt-Tarnopol, president of the community’s board of trustees. Love, she said, had a “shining heart.”

Love studied psychology at George Washington University, then worked in human resources at a hotel and casino. She discovered her passion for seniors when she took a job in HR at Jewish Geriatric Home in Cherry Hill, which later became part of Lions Gate. Here was a place, she told a fellow facility leader, where just stopping to talk and listen could make someone’s day.

Jeanette Axelrod, 90, who is chair of the Lions Gate resident council, lobbied hard for Love to become CEO in 2016 and never regretted it. During quarterly meetings with residents, she said, Love took note of every complaint, no matter how “absurd” some were.

Axelrod was surprised by how hard Love’s death hit her. “It really tore me to shreds,” she said. “… She was a person I admired in every single way.”

Love, Axelrod said, was always extremely careful about the virus. “She tried so hard to protect all of us, and she died of the very thing that she was most cautious about. Amazing.”

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Last year was tough for anyone who worked in senior housing. First there was the desperate hunt for PPE and COVID-19 tests. As the year wore on, there were more government rules and near-constant testing. Everything about how residents lived changed, from how they ate to how they exercised. Many wondered about the damage months of isolation was doing.

“She spent all these months doing COVID, COVID, COVID and putting everyone before herself,” said Love’s executive assistant, Sandy Kushner.

They still managed to have fun. “She made coming into work like going to a party,” Kushner said. “I looked forward to coming in here.”

While some saw boundless energy, family members said Love was worn out.

“She really was beyond exhausted,” Love’s sister Sylvia Miller said.

“Now’s not the time to be taking off,” Love told her daughter, Ashley Freedman. “People need me.”

Despite her busy schedule, Love stayed close with her parents; her sisters, Miller and Roberta Budman; and Freedman.

Miller, who has a nerve problem that causes chronic pain, texted Love every day at 6 a.m. They talked at 7 a.m. and texted throughout the day. Pre-pandemic, they loved to shop together and Love wore funny hats to lighten the mood. She was, Miller said, “a kid at heart.” They had their colonoscopies together this year. Miller and her husband moved to Love’s 55-and-up community in Voorhees last year.

“I can’t say enough nice things about her,” Miller said. “She was just a good human.”

Divorced from her first husband, Love met David Farber, who became her life partner, through a mutual friend. They were to marry on Oct. 28, 2018, but he had a “massive” stroke six days before. She nursed him back to health. “I’m convinced 100% she’s the reason I’m here,” he said. They had planned a party for 200 people but never got around to it.

Love, he said, was someone who helped others achieve. “She just had this aura about her that just made everybody better,” he said. “She made me better.”

Donald and Judy Love had been extremely careful during the pandemic. They’d barely left the house, but Judy Love did see her personal trainer for masked and distanced sessions at home. The Saturday before Thanksgiving he told her he had tested positive. On Tuesday, she fainted and went to the hospital for fluids. She tested positive, too. She came back home for a few days before needing to return to the hospital.

Donald Love refused to stay away from his wife of 61 years — they’d been high school sweethearts — when she got sick. Susan Love insisted on helping her parents after they tested positive. She thought she was the best-equipped family member.

When her daughter said she was worried, Love replied: “I would hope if this was me, you would do the same for me.” She sent a picture of herself in full PPE. Love had no underlying health problems, other than a tendency to get bronchitis easily.

» READ MORE: When a ventilator wasn’t enough, this coronavirus patient went on ECMO. It was not a sure thing.

The family sees no point in trying to lay blame. Who knows where the virus came from? Who knows whether Susan Love made a mistake or decided to risk a hug?

Farber thinks the lesson is that the coronavirus can reach people who thought they were safe. “This is very dangerous,” he said. “It just wipes out whole families.”

Judy Love, a former high school counselor who still donates time to help students apply for college, is emerging from her grief and trying new routines. Her husband and daughter would have expected that.

“I’m going to be OK,” she said. “It’s just that I have two big holes in my heart.”

Judy Love, who lost her mother at 16, learned resilience young and thinks her family needs to see it now. “Life has to go on, and I have to show them that,” she said.

Kushner thinks moving on is going to be hard at Lions Gate. “I don’t know how Lions Gate will ever be the same,” she said. “She had the special sauce.”