In Stuttgart on January 22, 1889 Friedrich Wilhelm (called Willi) Baumeister became the family's third child, born after Klara and Hans. Their father Wilhelm Baumeister (1847-1931) was court master chimney-sweep. He had studied mechanical engineering at the Stuttgart Polytechnic, but early on had to take over his father's company, then in the third generation. Willi's mother Anna, neé Schuler (1861-1945), was the daughter of the decorative painter Friedrich Wilhelm Schuler.