Definition of "befo"

She carried me to a young woman to nurse for her what she nursed at Mostor Wilks befo freedom.

1941, Work Projects Administration, “Arkansas Narratives: Volume 7”, in Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States‎

I use t'know when Mom was alive, befo Gramps brot me out here," Meersman replies in a delivery so flat as to make her seem not so much a bad actress as a nonactress.

1993 October 8, Jonathan Rosenbaum, “Bunuel's Neglected Masterpiece”, in Chicago Reader‎