She arrived in the town, alongside 23 other nurses from the Philippines, in 2002 to fill a shortfall of nurses.
Now aged 41, and with a Bolton-born husband and a five-year-old daughter, Mrs McKeown says she loves life in Bolton.
And despite her initial struggle with the broad Bolton accent and the weather, which was a shock after the tropical heat of the Philippines, she says she has never looked back.
Mrs McKeown was one of 1,000 nurses flown to the UK from the Philippines to help the NHS, which was facing a national shortage of staff.
Of the 24 who came to Bolton, 19 are still working at the Royal Bolton Hospital.
They keep in regular contact and meet up every year to celebrate their anniversary This year was particularly poignant for them as they celebrated a decade of life in Bolton with a party at Farnworth Veterans Club.
Mrs McKeown, a theatre nurse, started work on a medical ward, which is where she met her husband James, who works in A&E.
When she arrived in Bolton, Mrs McKeown, had already spent a few years working away from the Philippines in Saudi Arabia and says she believes this helped her to acclimatise to a different culture quickly.
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