[1] Halonen was born in Helsinki, Grand Duchy of Finland.
In 1912, Halonen emigrated to North America where he worked for the Finnish–Canadian newspaper Työkansa [fi] in Port Arthur, Ontario from 1912 to 1913 and for Raivaaja in Fitchburg, Massachusetts from 1914 to 1919.
Halonen was the editor of Työmies and since 1924 he worked as a division manager for the Co-operative Central Exchange.
[2] In 1929 Halonen was expelled from the Communist Party USA as he favored an independent cooperative organization instead of centralizing.
He took lessons at the University of Stanford and cataloged Finnish material in the Hoover Institution Library and Archives of Palo Alto.