Car maker’s great-grandson, a Krishna disciple, to speak at Houston Hindu celebration

If not for bad timing, Alfred Ford might not have been booted from the family home. But the young great-grandson of auto magnate Henry Ford chose to announce his conversion to the Hare Krishna movement just as Detroit newspapers trumpeted the Hindu spiritual awakening of Elizabeth Reuther, daughter of United Auto Workers Union president Walter Reuther. Fords and Reuthers mixed as well as motor oil and water, and even a bit of guilt by association was too much for the Ford clan. "They kicked me out of the house," Ford said of his angry parents. Within a few years, the familial crisis subsided, and today Ford, sometimes known as Ambarisa Das, has become an international ambassador for the Hindu-based teachings for the late Abhay Charan De, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.